Always
by Barb1
Summary: Liz Parker gets caught between an Angel and a Slayer--one wants to protect her and one wants to kill her. But she ends up giving them both a lesson in true love.
1. Encounters

The Jeep was speeding through the warm desert night at a breakneck speed

Liz climbed as quietly as she could onto the roof outside her bedroom. If her mom heard her she would kill her. Or worse, ground her. And having just left Max, and already missing him so much that her body ached, she knew

being grounded would just kill her dead. So she scaled up the fire escape ladder as quiet as a mouse and then let out a startled scream when she reached the roof.

Three people were waiting for her, two men and a woman, who rounded on her when she reached the top. They'd been looking in her bedroom window when she surprised them. The taller of the two men looked at the woman and she nodded.

"It's her," she said.

They all started toward her and Liz took a step down the ladder, preparing to flee.

"No, don't," the shorter, lankier of the two men said, his voice laced with an English accent. "We're here to help you."

"Really," Liz said, glancing down to see if Max's Jeep was still in the street but it was gone. And it was so late that no one else was around either.

"Really," the woman said, "and for only a small fee."

"Cordelia," the Englishman scolded.

"What?" she replied.

The other man wasn't saying anything and he was the one that was really worrying Liz. He had dark hair and dark eyes like his companion but he was much bigger, and more intimidating. She carefully lifted her foot off the

rung beneath her right foot and was preparing to scamper down when he finally spoke.

"Listen," he said, and his voice was surprisingly gentle. "You need to come with us."

"Uh, no," she said and she started down the ladder as quickly as she could. But she had only time to blink when suddenly he was right in front of her as if he'd flown the distance between them. Liz jerked away from him and

one hand slipped off the rung of the ladder. She fell back, wrenching the arm still holding onto the ladder, while her feet dangled beneath her. The man reached out and grabbed her. A terror of him surged through her that was greater then the prospect of falling off of the roof. He started lifting her onto the roof with very little effort and Liz tried to break free. She tried yanking free from him and he lurched a little.

"You're going to kill yourself!" He shouted.

But Liz couldn't help it and a second later she knew why. Right before her eyes his face--transformed. Where once there was a handsome, if brooding, face of a human being, there were now fangs and ridges and yellow eyes.

Liz screamed and swung away from him just as he pulled her onto the roof. With the momentum from her struggle she hit the concrete with an agonizing slapping sound, just before everything flickered out in front of her eyes.

*****

Max was half way home when he turned his Jeep around and went back to see Liz. They'd just had an incredible date and he'd only left her two minutes ago, but already it seemed like an eternity. Saying goodnight to her was

becoming harder and harder to do. He remembered the night they'd spent together in the desert. Waking up with her in his arms had been one of the greatest moments of his life. Of course, after they got back and found both

of their parents waiting for them, there had been a price to pay. But it didn't matter to him. Nothing was more important then Liz.

He pulled to a stop about a block away from the Crashdown. The Jeep was noisy and he didn't want to alert anyone that he was there. He started down the block, wondering exactly why he was going back. But he knew why. He was almost there when something hit him. Hard. 

The next thing he knew he was flat on his back, staring up at an attractive blond who had one fist pulled back to pummel him with and the other wrapped around his throat.

"Ford," she hissed.

He opened his mouth to object but she'd cut off his windpipe. She didn't look much taller then Liz, and she was just as petite, but she was so strong that the edges of his vision were going black. He grabbed her wrist with both hands while he shook his head in denial. 

She lifted him up and flung him toward the lamp post.

"You should have stayed dead," she said.

Max backed away. He lifted his hand to throw up a force field. He didn't want to use his powers but she was going to kill him. But when he stumbled to his knees she stopped. She tilted her head and looked at him more closely. Max scrambled to his feet. 

"I don't know who you think I am but I'm not him," he rasped.

She blinked then and the cold mask of anger vanished so quickly that he could almost swear it hadn't been there at all. She put her hands over her mouth and gasped. Suddenly she looked much younger, almost innocent.

"Oh my god, you're not are you?"

He shook his head slowly. He was feeling lightheaded from hitting the ground.

"I'm so sorry!"

Max could scarcely believe he was talking to the same girl who, only seconds before, had been trying to squeeze the life out of him. She came up to him, and he instinctively backed up. The movement sent him spiraling to the ground. The world was spinning so much he thought he might throw up. She was at his side instantly. She lifted him up without any effort and slung his arm around her shoulder.

"Come on, I'll get you home," she said.

*****

Max was still replaying the surreal scene in his head the next morning. He couldn't understand how a young woman half his size and weight could just send him flying like that. He may have really believed that he had dreamed it if he hadn't woke up with five small bruises around his neck. He'd healed himself so there was no evidence of the pounding he took.

He walked into the Crashdown, still wondering, when he ran into the young woman who'd tried to kill him the night before.

She was walking toward a booth and she walked straight into his chest.

"I'm sorry--" Then she looked up and recognized him. "Oh god."

Max took a step back.

"Hi," he said, because he couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Hi," she said, and then she started to babble. "I really don't run around attacking people. Well I do," she amended but then added quickly: "but only if they deserve it. But the point--the point is you _so_ didn't deserve it. It's just that you looked so much like him, especially in the dark." 

"Ford?"

"Yeah."

"Well I'm glad that I'm not him."

"Me to. But you don't seem any worse for it at least. I thought for sure I'd have left some mark."

She looked at his neck and Max tilted his head uncomfortably. 

"Well I don't bruise very easily."

"Good. That's a good thing. I--I'm Buffy by the way." She put her hand out to him and he shook it. 

"Max. Max Evans." 

"It's nice to meet you. Really. Don't take the trying to kill you thing personally." 

"Thanks. I think." 

Then a tall man in a suit walked up behind her.

"Buffy, I--" Then he saw Max. "Good lord. You're--"

"No," Buffy said, "he's not."

"But the resemblance--"

She grabbed him by his tie and pulled him away, smiling at Max apologetically as she lead him toward a booth.

Max was shaking his head in amusement when Liz's mom and dad came out of the kitchen.

"Max!" 

He shot his head in their direction. There was something in Mr. Parker's voice that was unmistakable. Fear.

"Max, have you seen Liz?"

"Not since last night."

"You did bring her home then?"

"Yeah, of course I did."

Liz's mom walked up and she looked pale and worried.

"Well she's not here now and she didn't sleep in her bed last night."

Max felt the blood drain out of his face. He didn't notice Buffy or her friend watching him carefully from their booth.

*****

When Liz woke up her head was pounding so hard her eyes started to water. She lifted her hand to her forehead and found a damp cloth on it. She smiled because her mom always did that when she didn't feel well. 

Then she remembered what happened. 

She shot up in the cot she was laying on and she thought she was going to pass out again. The room rocked at a sickening angle before her eyes and she felt her brain shift back and forth in her skull. 

"She's awake," she heard someone say and she heard shuffling but it was a few seconds before someone actually came to her side.

"Do be careful, you took quite a blow to your head," the English guy said. 

Liz turned her head slowly in his direction and found the bespectacled Englishman from the night before. 

"I remember," she said, narrowing her eyes at him. "It was you who did it."

"Actually, you did it yourself." Liz looked up and the brunette woman was holding out a tea cup for her. "But why quibble over details? Here drink this, it'll make you feel better."

Liz stared at her a moment and then slowly took the cup. Rat poison would make her feel better at that moment so she didn't see any harm in tasting the tea. She sipped at it while the couple stared at her.

"We know this must be very scary for you, but we are here to help you," the Englishman said. 

"I can tell," Liz said with a small nod.

He sighed.

"My name is Wesley, this is Cordelia. As soon as our friend returns we promise to explain everything to you."

"Friend?"

Then she remembered the man who's face suddenly snarled and hissed and horrified. The tea cup rattled in her hand. The woman reached out and steadied her hand. 

"I feel sick," Liz mumbled.

"I told you to let me make the tea," Wesley chided his companion.

"What do the English know about tea?" She replied. She helped Liz to her feet. "Come on, the bathroom is this way."

Liz looked around her as they made their way slowly toward the bathroom. They were in a warehouse of some sort. Cordelia led her to a private bathroom and Liz lurched inside and slammed the door behind her. 

Liz _was_ sick. But that wasn't going to stop her from climbing out the window of the small bathroom. She balanced precariously on the toilet seat, hoisted herself through the window without throwing up, but landed like a broken doll on the pavement below. She laid there for a moment just trying to get her strength back. But then she heard voices from the window and she forced herself to her feet and started running.

The entire thing felt like a very bad dream. She was trying to run fast but it didn't feel like she was going anywhere. Her head felt thick and throbbed. She lurched along and ran headlong into someone. She reeled back and landed on her rump. 

"Hey, you shouldn't be throwing yourself around like that. You might hurt somebody."

Liz looked up and saw a tall black man with a shaved head and serious brown eyes. 

"Sorry," she mumbled. "But I need help."

He leaned over and lifted her up into his arms. She was comforted by the fact that he struggled with her weight, unlike the scary guy from the night before.

"Well you're in luck, because that's what we do."

"We?" she mumbled.

Her vision was growing dim again but she was aware of the fact that he was taking her back inside the warehouse. Wesley and Cordelia came to an abrupt stop when they entered.

"Lose something," the guy holding her asked.

Liz started crying.


	2. Missing

Max sat in the sheriff's office, staring straight ahead, but unable to see anything other then Liz, standing on the fire escape stairs, smiling down at him

Max sat in the sheriff's office, staring straight ahead, but unable to see anything other then Liz, standing on the fire escape stairs, smiling down at him. 

"Max?"

He blinked and refocused on Sheriff Valenti. Liz's parents had freaked when the sheriff suggested he come to his office to talk. They thought the sheriff suspected Max and it was reassuring to know that they trusted him. Little did they know that he might be responsible. Just not directly. 

"There's nothing else you can tell me?" Valenti asked.

"No. I dropped her off—we were late so she went up the fire escape. I should have waited until I knew she was safe…I should have walked her to her window…."

"Max, there's no way you could have known…."

"Yes, there is. I should have known better. There is always danger. Always."

"You think this is alien related then?"

Max buried his head in his hands.

"I don't know."

"Did anything unusual happen last night?"

"No," Max jumped out of his chair, unable to sit still any longer. "Everything was fine. Perfectly normal up until…

"Until?"  


"Well, this girl jumped me."

"A girl jumped you."

"Yeah, but I don't think it had anything to do with this. She thought I was somebody else. Besides, she took me home so it couldn't have been her. Are we done? Can I go?"

"And do what?"

"I don't know. Something. I can't just sit here and wait."

"Max, there is no evidence that this has anything to do with aliens. She may just…"

"Have been nabbed by a serial killer?"

"Max…"

"Listen, you do your investigation and I'll do mine." He turned to leave but Valenti grabbed his arm.

"Max, be careful. And let me know if you learn anything. We're going to work together on this and we will find her."

*****

Max climbed up onto the roof and looked around. The small patio had police tape here and there but otherwise looked the same as it always had. He climbed into her bedroom. He didn't know what he was looking for but if anything was out of order he would know. 

He glanced at the picture of she, Maria and Alex and he picked it up. Alex was dead because of Max. He hadn't killed him but if Alex had lived in ignorance of what Max was, he'd still be alive today. He ran his finger over Liz's image. Max had tried to stay away from Liz in the beginning. He knew she might be in danger if she got involved with him. But he had loved her from the moment they met as children. He didn't know if it was some alien insight or something completely human, but he knew then that they were intertwined and always would be. If something happened to her, he didn't know how he would live as half a person. 

He looked up when he heard something outside on the patio. Still holding the photo, he crept to the window and peered carefully outside. 

"Buffy?"

The petite blond whirled around quickly, her fists drawn back in a fighting stance. She relaxed when she saw Max. He climbed out on the patio.

"What are you doing here?" He asked.

"Looking for you, actually. I was at the café this morning when they told you that girl was missing. Your girlfriend?"

Max nodded. 

"They said she disappeared last night."

The hair on the back of his neck was beginning to stand up. He had told Valenti that she had nothing to do with Liz's disappearance but he'd almost forgotten about her unusual strength, and now she was here, asking questions.

"I want to help."

Max blinked. 

"What? You don't even know Liz, or me."

"I know, but you were coming here last night when I stopped you, weren't you?" He nodded. "If I hadn't attacked you she might be OK. I—I feel responsible. Please let me help."

Guilt. Guilt was something that Max understood.

"Thanks, but I can't imagine what you could do."

"You'd be surprised."

*****

"How's she doing?" 

His voice sounded so gentle, it was hard to imagine that face—that horrifying face—went with it. Liz couldn't open her eyes anymore, the light made them water, so she just listened.

"I think she may need a doctor." Wesley said. 

"That is such a bad idea I won't even bore you with the details."

"Gunn's right. They'll be looking for her by now."

"Well we can't just sit here and let her get worse. We're suppose to be protecting her." Wesley declared. 

"She's more cooperative this way, at least." Cordelia said. "What? At least she's not throwing herself out windows anymore. Which, by the way, did not help that goose egg on the side of her skull."

"She was scared," the gentle voice said. "You would have done the same thing."

"Well, assuming that she's going to live," Gunn said. "What do we do now?"

"We rescued her from the capture that Cordelia foresaw in her vision but we still need to find out why she's after her. Ms. Parker, here, won't be safe until then." Wesley said.

"And until she's safe, she's not going anywhere." 

*****

Buffy walked over to the window and examined it. 

"No forced entry. They were probably waiting for her out here." She began looking around. "No signs of a struggle." She crouched down to get a closer look at the ground. "Cement, so no footprints. Does anything look out of place to you?"

Max was startled that Buffy actually did seem to know what she was talking about. He looked around.

"No, not really."

She looked at the framed picture in his hand and she put her hand out. He handed it to her.

"Which one is she?" She asked.

Max stopped and pointed to Liz in the photo.

"She's pretty," Buffy said, and there was regret in her voice. 

But Max didn't notice. He started picking things up and looking around the patio for something, anything, that would give him some clue. He was losing time and he didn't even know where to start. He kicked a chair. 

"You really love her don't you?"

"She—she is my everything. We're so different in so many ways and she still loves me. There are hundreds of reasons why we shouldn't be together but she knew we could make it work. She knows everything about me and she still loves me. We have been through so much, and she still---" The words wouldn't come out of his mouth any more. 

Buffy stared at him as he buried his face in his hands. What he said made her tremble. She recognized the anguish that she saw in his face. She'd lived it. And although he couldn't possibly have been through as much as she had with Angel he spoke of it like he had. 

She wanted to reassure him but she knew from too much experience that sometimes things didn't work out. 

"I'm sorry," Max said. 

"Don't be. You're worried, you should be. But we'll get to the bottom of this."

Max walked over to the ledge. 

"I wish---" As soon as his hands touched the cement the image shot through him like a surge of electricity. Liz looking down at the ground, dangling below her feet. She looked up and there was someone, no something, holding onto her. There were fangs, and yellow glistening eyes….Max stumbled back with a startled cry.

Buffy was next to him, supporting him. 

"What? What happened?"

"Something grabbed her," he mumbled. "He—it—had yellow eyes and fangs and his face was—deformed. She was dangling over the side of the roof." 

"Fangs?"

Max shook her off and stumbled around the roof. It was nothing he had ever seen before. It wasn't an alien, that much he knew instinctively. But it had been horrible, and it had Liz.

"How do you know it had fangs?" Buffy asked.

Max turned and looked at her. He felt like someone had splashed him with cold water. _Think of a lie!_

"I'm—I'm a bit psychic. Sometimes I can see things." 

He was surprised when she didn't give him one of those "are you kidding?" looks. In fact, she didn't even blink an eye. 

"What else did you see?"

"That's it."

"Was it a he or a she? What was it wearing? Dark hair or light? Were there any scars or tattoos or anything else distinctive?"

Max still couldn't believe that she wasn't thrown by the whole psychic thing.

"A he, I think. Dark hair, dark clothes, I didn't notice anything else."

She nodded.

"Well that doesn't narrow it down very much," she mumbled.

"Except for the fangs," Max said. "I could identify that in a crowd."

Buffy looked up suddenly. _Think of a lie!_

"Yeah, that." _Or just fudge over the topic._ "Listen, I have a friend who might help. Let me touch base with him and I'll get back to you, OK?"

"Sure," Max said, relieved to get rid of her. Her witnessing his vision was more then he had wanted to share. "I have some friends that I need to talk to too."

*****

Buffy walked into the hotel room to find Giles happily buried behind a pile of books. 

"Been doing your usual sightseeing tour, I see, "she said as she rifled through her purse. "Today ransack the libraries and tomorrow maybe you'll squeeze in city hall and the walking tour of the post offices."

Giles didn't look up from what he was reading.

"Mock me if you like, but the history of this town is really—"

"Quite fascinating," she finished for him.

"Yes, well, my research might help us discover where she is hiding."

"She's not hiding. Something got to her before we did." She found what she was looking for and she discarded her purse on the bed. 

"That doesn't bode well."

She walked over to him and shoved the picture of Liz and her friends under his nose. 

"Liz Parker is the dark haired one."

Giles studied the picture.

"She looks quite harmless doesn't she?" He remarked. 

"Yeah. And I spent some time with her boyfriend. He's really worried about her."

"That surprises you?"

"No, how much he loved her did. I don't know, Giles, something about this whole deal doesn't feel right. And if I'm going to kill this girl, I want to make sure that it's the right thing to do."


	3. Crossed Paths

Buffy was pacing in front of Giles

Buffy was pacing in front of Giles.

"I don't know, Giles. I've got a wicked-bad feeling about this."

"I have triple checked all of the signs, Buffy. The alignment of the stars, the birth date, the silver markings, even the near fatal shooting…"

"But the newspapers said she wasn't shot. And the reports that said she was were printed between stories about Bobo the dog faced boy and my stepmother was an alien."

"Buffy, we've seen how people rationalize when they see things that they can't quite believe."

"I just don't want to be wrong, Giles." She dropped down on the bed. "I thought this was going to be easy. Your great book of gloom and doom says we have to come here and stake another apocalyptic love child and I'm thinking 'great, field trip'. But then I listened to Max Evans describe how much he loves this girl and it seems like something so evil would not be able to inspire such devotion."

"You don't think that you are in any way reflecting your own feelings on the situation?"

"This has nothing to do with Angel," she said abruptly.

"I meant Max Evans." Giles said gently. "And his resemblance to Ford. You trusted him and he deceived you. Maybe that is why you want to so eagerly trust this boy and his judgement."

"Don't go all pychobabbly on me, Giles. If she really is going to somehow bring about the end of the world then I'll do what I have to. I'll kill her."

*****

"Fangs?" Isabel repeated.

Max had gone through the school and gathered all of his friends together. They'd found an empty classroom and he'd filled them in on what had happened. Maria, Liz's best friend was looking pale and upset. She'd already lost one of her best friends when Alex died. Michael was, as ever, looking grim and not saying much. Kyle was sitting quietly, taking it all in. Isabel was pacing like a caged panther. 

"It's what I saw," Max said. He found it strange that Buffy hadn't even questioned it and his sister and friends who knew him better did.

"So were talking vampire," Michael said after a moment of silence.

"Be serious, Michael." Isabel said.

"What do you think Max just described?" He countered.

"Vampires don't exist," she said.

"I didn't think aliens did either," Kyle replied. 

"This is insane! We have enough to deal with without inventing new monsters to fight off."

"Do you think that Max made it up?" Maria asked.

"No, of course not—"

"Then you're willing to say that you believe he saw this thing?"

Isabel nodded.

"Then let's go from there." Max said. "Michael says vampire and since that's our only working theory we need to suspend our disbelief and work with it. What do we know about vampires?"

"They hate garlic, sunlight and wooden stakes." Michael ventured. "They sleep during the day, come out at night."

"They drink blood and sleep in coffins." Maria added.

"None of that tells us why one would kidnap someone." Kyle interjected. 

"We need to know more," Max sighed. "Not just stuff we've seen in movies."

"I've know where I can find a few books on the subject," Maria said. Everyone looked at her. "I was toying with a possible Goth thing in middle school but I couldn't handle the clothes. I'll go grab them."

Max nodded. 

"See if you can find any reason why they'd kidnap someone and anything else we could use. The rest of us need to break up and start searching. If it's a vampire and he's sleeping right now then we might catch it when it's vulnerable."

"Isabel and I will check the cemetery. Michael and Kyle, check any place that might seem like a place a vampire might find shelter. Kyle, also check in with your dad and see if he's found anything else out on his end. We'll meet back at the Crashdown at sundown."

They all nodded and disbursed to carry out their tasks.

*****

Liz opened her eyes and peered out at her surroundings. It had been quiet for some time and she was feeling better so she opened her eyes without fear of her head falling off. There didn't appear to be anybody around. She sat up as quietly as she could. She looked around and there was no one in the warehouse. She didn't question her good luck; she simply got up and started creeping toward the nearest door. She couldn't tell how long she'd been there because all of the windows were papered over.

She'd almost reached the door when he spoke to her.

"You really don't want to do that."

Liz whirled around and then discovered she wasn't all that much better because she lost her balance and hit the floor. The guy with the gentle voice was standing over her. Liz started to back away on her hands.

"There is someone out there that wants to hurt you."

"Someone in here too," she replied.

"We just want to help you." 

"No, you don't."

"I'm sorry that I scared you. I didn't mean to."

Liz stopped momentarily.

"What are you?"

"I'm a vampire."

Liz shook her head in disbelief. She would have laughed out loud if he hadn't looked so serious. 

He walked closer to her where there was a thin shaft of light coming in from between the paper on the windows. He stuck his hand into the light and Liz watched as his skin began to sizzle. He gritted his teeth and pulled it back into the darkness. It was still smoking. Liz shook her head again and started backing up. She was almost at the door.

"If you run out into the sun I won't be able to follow you. But I won't be able to protect you either." His voice was strained in pain. 

Liz stopped just short of the exit.

"Protect me from what?"

"I don't know."

She scrambled to her feet.

"I'll have to take my chances then," she declared.

"Cordelia had a vision that you were attacked and killed by someone. We don't know by who, only that it was a blonde woman." He shrugged. "It's not a precise science. We think we stopped her from killing you last night but we still don't know why she wanted you dead. We can't guarantee your safety until we stop her for good."

"I'm suppose to believe your friend had a vision?" Liz demanded. "What could be more unbelievable?"

Angel lifted his still smoking hand. 

"Right, a vampire and a psychic. And the other two? Are they a wizard and werewolf?" She turned and opened the door. The light made the man shrink back.

"Nothing unusual has ever happened to you before?" He called from the safety of the dark. "You can't think of anything or anyone that might want to harm you?"

Liz stopped. 

"All we wanted to do was rescue you. If you hadn't injured yourself we would have explained this to you sooner. We've done nothing to harm you so far and we won't. We just want to keep you safe. If you go out there, you won't be."

Liz turned slowly back toward the vampire. 

"Pretending for a minute that any of this is true—why are you doing this then? Why do you want to protect me?"

"Because it's what we do."

Liz stared at him, the sun still on her back.

"Why don't you come back in," he said. "You must be hungry. Cordy's bringing some food. In the meantime I think we have some of those stale little biscuits you're suppose to dip in coffee."

He turned and walked toward a card table set up in a corner. Liz looked outside. If they had meant to hurt her they did have plenty of opportunity to do it while she was injured. And the thought that she was being confronted by a vampire was ridiculous and yet—she'd seen his face _change_. Her scientific urge was itching to learn more. Slowly she followed him back inside. But she walked passed the table and over to the window nearest to it. She ripped one of the sheets of paper off of the window, bathing one of the chairs in sunlight. Then she sat down. He understood the implication and he nodded and sat down across from her.

"My name is Angel," he said. 

"Of course it is," Liz said. "After all, Stan or Ralph wouldn't fit would it?"

*****

Maria didn't know where to begin. She was staring at the computer index filing system on the library computer and she was at a loss. The two books that she had at home were pretty useless so she decided to do some research. 

Subject: vampires

Subject: Creatures of the night

Subject: what to do when your best friend is kidnapped by a real life vampire 

Surprisingly, nothing came up. So she went for the general supernatural phenomenon. It gave her two books and she wrote down the numbers and went in search of them. She found a very small section in the back corner of the building. She turned the corner of the stack and was startled when she found a really good-looking guy with wire rimmed glasses examining the books there with great interest. He didn't even notice her until she said excuse me and nudged him aside to get at one of the books she was looking for.

"This is pathetic," he mumbled with an English accent. Maria found him even more attractive with that. 

"I know," she agreed. "I have a bigger collection on my bookshelf at home."

"And I thought it was just me," he said and he smiled at her. "Because I'm use to a much larger collection." 

"Well there's a mystic bookshop on Citrus," she said. "I don't know how authentic anything is but it's got to be better then this."

"Thank you," he said, and he left her to her own research.

*****

"OK, Max, this is just creepy and strange," Isabel said for about the tenth time as she and Max walked up to another mausoleum. 

"We have to check them all." He insisted as he glanced around to make sure there were no witnesses. When he didn't see anyone, he used his powers to pop the aging lock and then he and Isabel went inside it quickly. 

Gunn turned the corner of the mausoleum a second later, muttering angrily to himself.

"We need fresh graveyard dirt for the ritual," he said as he bent down and began shoveling handfuls of the dirt from the grave next to the mausoleum into a bag. "None of this crap ever calls for something nice like a puppy or fuzzy kitten." He stopped and gave that some thought. "Maybe I should be grateful."

He stood up, closed the bag and started back the way he'd come. 

Isabel burst out of the mausoleum retching. Max clamored after her, looking around to make sure no one was still around. Thankfully, no one was.

"I am not doing that again Max! He or it is not here."

Max nodded grimly.

"It'll be sunset soon, lets head back to the Crashdown."

*****

Michael and Kyle were already at the Crashdown when Maria walked in. 

"Find anything?" Maria asked.

"Zilch," Michael said, plopping down on a counter stool. "We checked everywhere we could think of."

"Getting thrown out of the funeral home was a memorable experience." Kyle added.

"What did your dad say?" 

"He hasn't---" He trailed off as he caught sight of the gorgeous brunette who walked in. Michael followed his gaze and seemed equally impressed. "They don't make em like that anymore."

Maria sent an elbow into his ribs.

"Wasn't she in a Coppertone commercial?" Michael said.

"Yeah, like she'd be in Roswell."

The woman walked up to the counter and set down the paper bag she'd been carrying. 

"Hi, I'm Cordelia Chase, I called in an order."

Ethel, the mid day waitress, nodded and went in the back. Cordelia reached into her purse to get her wallet and she knocked the paper bag off of the counter.

"Damn it!" She said and Michael and Kyle were at her side faster then a shot. 

"Do you need some help?" Kyle asked. 

Michael scooped up the bag and gave it back to her. 

"Thanks," she said but then she pulled her hand away and found it covered in a red substance. "Oh great, it opened."

Kyle handed her a napkin and Ethel handed her another paper bag. She put the old, wet bag in the new one, looked inside, screwed the top back on whatever was in it and then wiped her hand off. 

"Thanks," she said to them, giving then a winning smile.

"You're not the girl from the Coppertone commercial are you?" Kyle blurted.

She gave then a spectacular superstar smile. 

"Why yes, I am."

"Wow."

She seemed pleased that they recognized her and continued to smile while she paid for her food. When she walked away from the counter Kyle hit Michael in the stomach.

"I told you," he said.

"You told _me_?"

Maria walked over and bent down to look at the spots of the red liquid that the woman had dripped on the floor. 

"Guys," she said. But they were too busy watching Cordelia climb into the big black convertible parked at the curb. She gave them another winning smile and a homecoming queen wave as she pulled away. They eagerly waved back.

"Guys," Maria repeated and this time she smacked them both in the knees. She looked up at them. "This is blood."

"Why would the Coppertone girl have blood?" Kyle asked. 

Like divine intervention, Max walked in with Isabel and suddenly the implication clicked. Suddenly Kyle and Michael looked at one another and then they went sprinting out into the street to see which way she'd gone. 


	4. Blood Trail

"Blood

"Blood?"

"It wasn't ketchup."

"But she was the girl from the Coppertone commercial, she can't be a vampire."

"Yeah, I thought vampires didn't photograph."

"I thought you said the vampire was a guy."

"She wasn't a guy, that I can say with utmost conviction."

"Shut up, Kyle."

They were all standing on the sidewalk in front of the Crashdown. The Coppertone girl had gotten away before Michael and Kyle could catch up with her or before Max and Isabel even knew what had happened. Now they were staring out on the street at a complete loss.

"Start from the beginning," Max said in a calm, rational voice, even though a vein on the side of his neck was throbbing.

"Well, uh…" Kyle started.

"There was this…" Michael fumbled. 

"She came in, ordered food, these guys were too busy drooling over her to notice that she was carrying around a pint of blood," Maria summed up. "She left, and then the Marx brothers tripped over their own tongues trying to catch her."

"But it was light out, wasn't it?" Isabel reasoned. "If she was a vampire she wouldn't have been able to go outside."

"It wasn't real dark but it was past sunset." Michael said. 

"But it was a girl," Max said. "Whatever attacked Liz was a guy. What did she look like?"

"You've seen that suntan commercial haven't you? She was in the brown bikini." Michael replied.

"Dark hair, dark eyes, legs like a----" Kyle continued. 

Maria rolled her eyes and stomped inside. When she came back out Kyle was still describing her.

"—the size of melons…."

Maria stomped on his foot as she walked by him and while he hopped around on it she handed Max a slip of paper. 

"She called in an order."

Max looked at the paper.

"Cordelia Chase." 

"Her parents were Shakespeare fans, other than that it tells us nothing." Isabel declared. "Unless—did she pay with a credit card?"

"Cash."

"It looks like she ordered enough food for four people." 

"Do vampires eat stuff other then blood?" Michael asked, looking at Maria. 

"I don't think so, but the stuff I found at the library was pretty nonexistent. I was going to try the shop on Citrus next."

"You said the blood was in a container?" Max asked.

Maria nodded. 

"I've never heard of a vampire drinking blood out of anything other then a neck," Kyle said. 

Max handed him the food order receipt. 

"Kyle, see if your father can find anything on this name. It's kind of unusual so maybe we'll get lucky. Maria, you and Isabel go to that store and see if you can find anything useful. Michael and I will head in the direction the car went and see if we can come across it."

"That's a heck of a long shot, don't you think?" Isabel said.

"Yeah, but I have to do something."

*****

"Well, it's nice to see you're doing better."

Liz looked over her shoulder and saw Angel's companions walk in. She had been sitting, eating biscotti, that was indeed stale, with Angel.

"Liz Parker," Angel said. "This is Cordelia Chase, Charles Gunn, and Wesley Wyndam-Pryce." 

They all nodded at her and smiled. Somehow knowing their names made her feel more reassured, especially now that the odds were four against one.

Cordelia walked over to them and plopped a bag down on the table. Then she handed Angel a wet paper bag. He opened it and pulled out a half empty container of a red liquid. 

"Where's the rest of it?" He asked.

"On the front seat of your car," Gunn said. 

"My car?"

"It spilled when I got the food and the second bag started leaking too."

"On the leather?"

Cordy started passing out burgers.

"Leather, yeah right." She said. 

Liz stared at the cup that Cordy put down in front of her. 

"You got this at the Crashdown."

"Yeah, a tacky little alien-themed place. Like they couldn't have come up with a better idea in a town that is already littered with cheesy alien crap."

"My parents own it," Liz said.

"Which is probably why she lives above the place," Gunn pointed out. 

Cordelia gave a fake, embarrassed chuckle and handed Liz a napkin.

"My parents must be going crazy. And Max---" She stood up. "I have to at least call them."

"I'm sorry," Wesley said. "That's not a good idea."

"Why not? How can it hurt to let them know that I'm alright?" 

"Because we don't know what is after you exactly and we don't want to let anyone know where you are."

"But I have friends who can help me."

"I'm sure that you do, but the forces at work here may be—unusual—and we're better equipped to deal with it then your friends."

"You don't know them," Liz shot back. 

She thought about Max. She knew what he'd be doing. He would think whatever happened to her was his fault. He'd be turning over the most dire possibilities that he could think of in his head. He'd be going crazy. She remembered when he was kidnapped by agent Pierce. She remembered how sick she'd felt, how helpless. She wouldn't let him go through what she did.

"I'm going to call him or I am out of here!" She cried defiantly, knowing full well that if they didn't want to let her go there wasn't a whole lot she could do about it. She decided not to take any chances. She turned and stomped toward the door. Not one of them made any move to stop her but they did glance at each other.

"Liz," Angel said patiently. She yanked open the door and felt the cool night air brush her face. "You may endanger him if you drag him into this. It's best to keep everyone unnecessary out of it."

He said the one thing that would stop her.

When Max Evans saved her life, his life had been thrown into turmoil. He put his existence in jeopardy to bring her back from the dead. She refused to do anything that would put him into any more danger than he already was in because of her.

She closed her eyes, felt the slight breeze one more time and then she slammed the door shut with a cry of frustration. 

*****

"Cordelia Chase," Sheriff Valenti muttered as he typed it into his computer. He looked up at Kyle. "Anything else you can tell me?"

"She likes Coppertone?"

Valenti furrowed his brows.

"She was driving a big black convertible."

"Did you get a license plate?"

Kyle shook his head. The guidance counselor that said he was suited for law enforcement was full of crap. Of course it turned out she was an undercover FBI agent so there you go.

"Well let's see what we come up with." He typed in the name and a few seconds later a list popped up on his screen.

"Cordelia Chase, Road Island, 84, arrested in…."

"Not her," Kyle said.

"Okay…." He read through a few other names until he came across: "Cordelia Chase, 20 years old, applied for a private detective license two years ago. "

"It could be her, where does she live?"

"Los Angeles."

"That's her."

"How do you know?"

"Everyone who lives in LA is an actress."

Valenti picked up his phone and started dialing. 

"What are you doing?" Kyle asked.

"Calling the detective agency she works for."

Kyle leaned in close to listen. But it was a machine that picked up.

"Angel Investigations, " a female voice said cheerily. "We help the helpless." Kyle started pointing to the phone, nodding vigorously. "I'm afraid we're out of town on urgent business but if this is an emergency please dial: "

Valenti scribbled the number down and then hung up and dialed again.

"That was her voice," Kyle insisted. 

"Caritas, karaoke bar," a voice said on the other line. 

"Excuse me?" The sheriff said.

"What, you were expecting maybe the Playboy mansion?"

"I was expecting a detective agency."

"Oh, you called Angel's first. Don't worry, we help the helpless here too, especially if you're having trouble with your range. What can I do for you?"

"I really wanted to talk to Cordelia."

"Well Cordy and the gang are out of town right now, working on their tans in some godforsaken desert. They left me in charge of any emergencies here on the home front. So tell me your worries, you sound like a closet Elton John lover. Go ahead, give me a couple of bars of Crocodile Rock and I'll tell you all you need to know."

"Listen, I'm looking for a missing girl and I don't have time—"

"And tell junior next to you to give me a selection of Brittany Spears and I can tell him all about his future love life with a gorgeous blond that would put that teenage pop star to shame."

"What are you—" The Sheriff felt his blood run cold. "How do you know my son is here?"

"Well, that's what I do, sheriff."

Valenti slammed the phone down. 

*****

Angel found Liz on the roof. She was staring up at a cluster of stars. Angel looked up and realized that the stars were really brilliant here. There weren't as many harsh city lights drowning out how spectacular they looked. 

Liz heard him approach and he watched her rub tears out of her eyes. 

"Are you OK?" He asked.

"I've been better," she said. "I just want this to be over so I can get back to Max."

"He's your boyfriend?"

Boyfriend. That seemed so insignificant a word to describe what he meant to her. 

"He's my everything," she said. "He and I have been through so much together. The obstacles we've had to overcome to get where we are have been so monumental I can't even describe them. But we saw it through and we're together—finally. But something always comes up, something like this and some times it doesn't seem like it's ever going to stop. I will never have a normal life I guess."

She rubbed her eyes again and looked at Angel. 

"You probably think I'm just some lovesick teenager who thinks being grounded on Friday night falls under monumental obstacle."

"No," he said quietly. "I know about monumental obstacles. I have the scars to prove them."

"From who?"

He was still for a long time. Liz wondered what a supposed vampire could know about true love. 

"She was about your age when I met her. And I tried," he shook his head. "I tried, to keep myself from falling in love with her. There were the obvious reasons—she was sixteen, I was two hundred and forty. I was a vampire, she was a vampire slayer…."

"A vampire slayer," Liz said.

"One girl in all the world that is chosen to fend off the vampires." He said matter of factly. "But it didn't matter. She was like water in a desert. We couldn't stay away from each other no matter how hard we tried."

Liz watched his face and the intensity when he spoke was visible in every feature.

"What happened?" Liz asked when he didn't seem inclined to finish. "With her?"

"We decided we couldn't stay together. She deserved a life I could never give her. A normal life."

Liz felt like her heart dropped to her feet. 

"It may not end like that for you and Max," he said, reading her thoughts. "I'm sure you two don't have nearly as much to overcome. Buffy and I were from two different worlds."

Two different worlds? Why did he have to put it that way? She rubbed her arms, suddenly chilled and desperate to stop thinking of the things Angel had just inadvertently presented her with.

"So you told me that you were a vampire. I didn't think vampires would help people." 

"They generally don't as a rule. But I was cursed by a band of gypsies that restored my soul." 

Liz's eyebrows furrowed so he explained.

"When you become a vampire you lose your soul and the demon takes over. You feed on people without remorse. You become more monster then man."

"Some women like a little monster in their man," a cocky English accented voice said. 

Liz turned and saw a tall man with white-blond hair perched on the ledge behind them, his long black leather duster flapping in the wind like a cape. Then Angel's hand was gripping her arm, hard. 

"Get downstairs with the others," he told her and the gentle voice was gone. Suddenly his tone matched the horrific face that she had seen on the roof outside her bedroom. He pushed her behind him protectively and he faced the man on the ledge. The next word he spoke he spat out like a curse word: "Spike."


	5. The Beauty of Chaos

"And now you help people to make up for it

"Is everything going according to plan?" She asked in that far away voice that he so loved. 

"No," he replied, slipping his arms over her shoulders. She shrugged him off and turned to glare at him. 

"No?" She asked frostily.

"Of course not, that's the beauty of chaos, there is only disorder and discord."

"And pain?"

"Of course, my dear. Pain for everyone involved. Pain for everyone that has ever hurt you."

She smiled at him.

"Then it is going exactly as planned."

*****

Liz stepped back; looking on as Angel and the man he called Spike circled each other. They both looked predatory and dangerous.

"Well, well, well," Spike said. "I didn't expect to find _you_ here. The last time I laid eyes on you, you were strung up like a Christmas goose with my friend sticking you with a hot poker. It makes me all warm and fuzzy to think of it."

Angel reached out and grabbed him by the throat. 

"I heard that you've been neutered, Spike. If that's the case, then I wouldn't be reminiscing, if I were you."

But Spike just gave him a chilling grin.

"Yeah, but the thing about it is—this chip in my head keeps me from hurting humans and, soul or no soul, you still don't fall under that category." Then with a movement so quick, Liz almost missed it; Spike lifted a crowbar from within his long black coat and swung at Angel's head. The sound of it hitting the vampire on the side of the head filled the night with a loud cracking sound. 

Angel hit the ground hard and Liz let out a scream. The blow Angel took would have killed anyone. But she kept forgetting that Angel wasn't anyone. He lifted himself up on his knees and turned and looked at her. Once again his face was contorted with ridges and fangs. Liz stifled the scream in her throat. 

"Go!" He shouted and he turned to face Spike again, who slammed him on the other side of the head with the same crowbar. When Spike stepped closer to Angel Liz saw that his face had also made a transformation and it was even more terrifying because it seemed to match the savagery of the beholder. Liz didn't need any more warnings; she turned and ran to the door that led downstairs. She was reaching for the knob when a crowbar embedded itself in it. Liz whirled back around and found Spike grinning at her.

"Now it's rude to leave a party before it's just begun." 

Then Angel tackled him from behind. They went sliding across the roof with a skin-peeling ripping noise. Liz jumped out of the way. She turned and tried to get the crowbar loose but it was solidly embedded and she couldn't get it free. She started pounding on the door and then she heard Wesley on the other side. 

"Miss Parker?"

"Help!!!" She screamed and she pounded on it more until she felt her hand turning purple. She could hear Wesley, Gunn and Cordelia on the other side, making banging sounds. When the door started to shimmy with the impact of whatever they were hitting it with she backed away from it. 

Then she heard a crashing sound behind her and she turned just in time to see Angel take a viscous kick to his chest. He stumbled back, and smiling, Spike kicked him again, sending Angel over the low wall, off of the roof.

Liz was screaming and running to the wall before sanity dictated that it was a stupid thing to do. She looked over the edge and saw Angel on the concrete below and an inexplicable rage filled her. She turned on Spike, who was looking her over with interest.

"You killed him," she said and she found herself pounding on his chest with her fists.

"Ooo, feisty. I like that in a woman. It's a bloody shame that my heart is spoken for." Then he lifted Liz up in his arms and started running toward the opposite side of the roof. Liz was sure that he was going to drop her off the side of the building like he had Angel but she was stunned when he used his running start to leap off the roof with her in his arms. She instinctively grabbed the vampire in a death grip and squeezed her eyes shut. A few agonizing seconds later they hit the ground. She was jarred out of his grip and went flying into a pile of alley trash. She sat up quickly and looked around, blinking and in disbelief that she was still alive. Spike was a few feet away from her. He stood up and dusted himself off. He grinned at her and Liz started backing up.

"You know, she's just going to kill you when I give you to her anyway. She won't mind if I have just a little taste."

*****

"So what's up with this Buffy chick?" Michael asked over the roar of the Jeep's engine. 

"What do you mean?" Max asked, scanning the area for the black automobile that the missing, blood toting Coppertone girl was last seen in. 

"You don't think it's a little suspicious that she shows up right when Liz disappeared? Maybe she wasn't the one that nabbed her but maybe she was sent to distract you so you wouldn't intervene."

"She seemed really surprised that I wasn't the Ford person she thought I was." He knew that everything about Buffy was suspicious but something kept nagging him that said she was one of the good guys. Still he couldn't dismiss anything if it meant finding Liz. "But anything is possible." 

They'd been searching and still couldn't find any sign of the black convertible. So he pulled off to the side of the road and pulled out his cell phone.

"She gave me a number where I could reach her," he told Michael. "Maybe we can question her and—"

The phone started ringing. 

"Hello?"

"Max? Hi, it's Buffy. I talked to some friends and they didn't come up with anything new but I wanted to ask you some more questions. Can I meet you somewhere?""

Max looked up at Michael.

"Sure, Buffy. I have some questions for you to."

*****

Liz scampered back, away from Spike but he was all over her in a split second. She tried pushing him away but he was incredibly strong. He lowered his head down to her neck and she was about to scream for all she was worth when he suddenly yanked away from her, screaming. He had a hand over one of his eyes and he stumbled back. 

"Bloody hell!" He shouted. "Why didn't you tell me you were human?" He stumbled around a little then he lowered his hand and blinked at her as if something just occurred to him. "Hey, that means—"

That's when the car hit him. It roared out of no where and slammed the vampire right in the back. He caught air and was launched several feet down the alley. Then the car screeched to a stop in front of Liz. Angel was behind the wheel of the big black convertible. 

"Get in," he said and she didn't even bother with the door, she leaped inside and Angel slammed it into reverse. 

*****

The fact that a young woman would agree to meet a practical stranger in a dark alley reminded Max that Buffy was not a typical girl. If he hadn't been so distracted by Liz's kidnapping maybe he would have picked up on it sooner. 

He had not wanted to abandon his search so he asked Buffy to meet him where he and Michael had been when she called. They had reached an industrial area of town that was full of warehouses and she didn't hesitate when he asked her to meet him there. 

It only took her a few minutes to get there and as he watched her walk up he took the time to study her. She was small in stature but she moved with uncompromising confidence. She didn't seem scared but she glanced around like she was assessing the area. Max knew she was incredibly strong but she wasn't very muscular. And he remembered that she had summed up the crime scene like a seasoned investigator. It made him realize that he didn't know anything at all about her. 

"Hi," she said with a sunny smile. "Any luck?"

"No," he replied. "What happened with your friend?"

"I have some people looking into it. But I wanted to ask you some questions."

"Me too." He said quietly, and that's when Michael came up behind her. The plan was to hold her while Max asked her questions. Intimidation wasn't in his nature but he had to find Liz. But when Michael put his hands on her shoulders she didn't hesitate to grab his wrist and swing him into the closest wall. When she turned back to Max, her fists were clenched and she had that look of hatred in her face that she had when they first met.

"It's not nice to pick on us poor defenseless females. Now what the hell was that about?"

Michael was groaning and climbing to his feet. But Max didn't back down. 

"I think you know more then what you're telling me," he said. "Why do you really want to find Liz? Who are you?"

*****

"L.A.? As in Los Angeles?" Liz asked as Cordelia shuffled passed carrying a box of God-knows-what. 

"It'll be safer for you there," Gunn said, toting a bag across the floor that seemed to be filled with dirt. 

"If Spike knows where we are then we have to leave here," Wesley said, hefting a bunch of really heavy looking dusty books. "We have no idea who he's working for."

"Then shouldn't we find out?" Liz suggested. "I mean, this is never going to end if we don't find out who it is that's trying to kill me. And if Spike's working for her then shouldn't we make Spike tell us who it is?"

"That's why I'm staying behind," Angel said. He had just hung up the phone and he was walking over to Liz. She still couldn't understand, even after seeing it happen twice, how such a handsome face could just twist into something so evil looking. He looked over at his friends. "I just checked in. The Host says he got a call from the Roswell sheriff. He was looking for Cordy."

"Me?" Cordy said. "Why was he looking for me? Why not Wesley, or Gunn! Gunn has a record!"

"He didn't know why, he just got vibes from him that told him that much." He looked at Liz again. "Liz, things are getting too dangerous for you here. You can go back to L.A. with these guys and I'm going to stay and find out what's going on."

"Can I call—"

He shook his head. "I'm sorry."

She nodded glumly and sat back in her chair. 

"You can help me out if you could tell me if you know of anyone that would want to hurt you. A blond in particular."

"Tess," she replied without hesitation. 

"Who is Tess?"

__

Who is Tess, Liz thought. _Back stabbing, seductress/ murderess from another planet._ But she couldn't exactly tell Angel that. 

"She—she's Max's ex-girlfriend." Even saying the words made her quiver with anger. "She's bitter."

"Do you think she's capable of murder?"

"Yes." Liz said and she stood up and began pacing. She'd already killed Alex. But the last time Liz saw her Tess was on a one way trip back to her home planet, carrying Max's child. "But she left town a while ago. I don't think she can come back."

"Maybe she snuck back into town."

Liz thought of all the headlines the original Roswell crash had caused and how it had effected the town and the entire nation. 

"Unlikely, but I suppose it's possible."

"I don't know what her connection is to Spike but I'll find out." 

He stood up and went back to the phone. Everyone else had resumed their frantic packing. Liz crossed her arms and sat back down. Things were going too fast and she'd never felt so out of control in her life. She would feel better if she could talk to Max, or at least tell him she was all right. But she knew that Angel was right. They'd already had run-ins with the government so his phone being tapped wasn't out of the question. And who knew what vampires and other monsters that she wouldn't have believed were real just two days ago were capable of. If only….

Liz gave a start and sat up. There was a way! She glanced around and everyone seemed busy. She'd only have a minute or two and she didn't want anyone to see her do it, it would bring up too many questions that she was unable to answer. But no one was paying attention to her so she sat back, closed her eyes, and prayed that she could remember how to do it. 

*****

Buffy hesitated. What was she going to tell him? I'm here to kill your girlfriend?

"Listen, Max, I---" But then she realized he wasn't paying attention to her anymore. His eyes drifted over her shoulder to something behind her. She turned and standing behind her was Liz Parker. It only took a second, however, to realize that the girl wasn't really there, it was a ghost-like image of her. Max stepped passed Buffy, toward the apparition.

"Liz?" Max said.

She smiled and mouthed the words "I'm OK." Then she nodded. Obviously she couldn't speak in the form she'd taken. Then she turned to the guy that had tried to jump her and mouthed the same words again. Then she saw Buffy and she froze. 

"Liz, where are you?" Max asked.

But she shook her head and mouthed "I'm OK" again and then she took a step back. She looked around, like she was confused about something. She turned around in a circle then she looked up at Max again and this time she looked frightened. 

"Liz, what's happening?" He asked and panic was seeping into his voice. "Where are you?"

He took a step toward her and she took a step back. She shook her head, turned, and bolted down the alley.

*****

Liz couldn't turn it off. She'd contacted Max this way once before when he was in New York City with Tess, but Ava had been there to walk her through it. Liz had thought that if she could start the process on her own then she could stop it, but she couldn't. 

She'd connected with Max as she'd planned and she knew that he couldn't hear her so she'd made her message simple. She was going to let him know that she was OK and then she was going to return to her body but something had gone wrong and she couldn't pull out of it. Now she was running, trying to get away from him.

It was a strange thing. She was cognitively aware that she was still in the warehouse but she was also breathing heavily and feeling sweat trickle down her back from the running. She didn't even know where Max was when she found him so she had no idea where she was running to. She glanced around to get her bearings when she noticed some fresh skid marks on the ground beneath her. 

"Oh no," she whispered to herself. She stopped running and looked around. She saw the place where her body had made an impression in the trash pile nearby. "No….."

She turned and saw Max and Michael coming after her. And that blond that had been with them. That blond….

"Liz?" 

It was Cordelia's voice. 

"Liz?" 

She felt the brunette give her body a shake but it wasn't enough to break her free. 

"Angel!" She cried. "Something is wrong with her!"

Then she heard the slap but she didn't feel it until she opened her eyes and she felt the sting on her cheek. 

"Cordy, you slapped her." Angel said, coming up to them.

"She was having a seizure or something."

"And slapping her is medically sound," Wesley said, bending down to Liz's eye level. "Are you all right?"

"He's coming," Liz stammered, still disoriented. "I've lead him right to us." Then she looked at Angel. "And he's with a blond."

*****

Max came to an abrupt stop when he saw Liz's image suddenly vaporize. 

"Damn it!" he shouted. He looked frantically around the alley. Michael came up behind him.

"What was she running from?" He asked.

"I don't know," he cried.

Then Buffy came up behind them. But before anyone could say anything they all heard the roar of an engine around the corner. Max and Michael turned the corner and saw two men and a woman sitting with their backs to them in a big black convertible. 

"That's the car!" Michael shouted.

Then the man from Max's vision came running out of the warehouse, holding Liz's hand as they ran toward the car. The man ran over to the driver's side and then leaped behind the wheel and the others all reached their hands out to Liz.

"Come on, come on," Max heard them say, and to his surprise, she reached up and let them haul her into the car. 

"Liz!" He shouted. 

She looked over her shoulder when she heard his voice. She looked incredibly sad but she didn't make a move to get out of the car. Then the guy behind the wheel floored it.

"Max," Liz whispered, sandwiched between Angel and Gunn in the front seat. 

"We'll get you back to him," Gunn assured her. 

Liz looked back over shoulder and her heart constricted when she saw Max and Michael futilely trying to run after them. Then she realized something.

"She's gone," she said.

"Who?"

"The blond," Liz said.

"What did she look like?" Angel asked.

Liz turned back to face forward and she pointed out the windshield.

"Just like her."

Standing in the middle of the alley less then a yard in front of them stood the blond that Liz had seen with Michael and Max. Angel jerked the wheel to the right, scraping the side of the car along one of the alley walls, amidst screams and shouts from the passengers, just barely missing her. The car came to a rough stop and the young woman walked up to the driver's side. 

"Angel," she said, looking like she should be surprised but she wasn't.

The vampire looked up at her and he shook his head.

"Buffy," he growled. 


	6. Foreplay

"What are you doing here, Angel

Angel leaped out of the car.

"What the hell were you trying to do?" He shouted at the small blond that he overshadowed by at least a foot. "You could have gotten us all killed!"

Buffy lifted her chin and didn't seem the least bit intimidated.

"It's not my fault you didn't wear your seatbelts," she said defiantly. 

"Why are you here, Buffy?"

"Why am _I _here?" She said. "Why? This isn't your town. You can't throw me out of here like you did in L.A."

"So you're sightseeing?"

"Why are _you_ here?" 

"Business."

Buffy looked into the car and nodded. 

"I see you brought your gang." She looked back up at Angel. "Who's your friend?" 

Angel stepped in front of her, blocking the slayer from Liz.

"I have a feeling you know exactly who she is."

"I don't think you do. If you did, you wouldn't be protecting her."

They started circling each other without even realizing it. The tension they gave off was palatable. So much so that when Max and Michael caught up to the accident they didn't feel it was safe to try and get passed the couple to get to the car. 

"So _I'm_ the one making the mistake. Did it ever occur to you that maybe you're the one doing the wrong thing?" Angel demanded.

"No," Buffy lied.

In the car, Cordelia leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially to Gunn and Wesley: "Buffy is the one trying to kill Liz?"

"I believe that is what Angel thinks, yes."

"You're the one that had the vision, didn't you?" Liz asked. 

Cordelia nodded wisely. "I should have made the connection between Buffy and the mismatched outfit."

"That's Buffy?" Gunn said. "Not much to her, is there?"

"Don't underestimate her. She's one of the most powerful vampire slayers in recorded history."

"And yet she still hasn't found a haircut that works for her," Cordelia sighed.

__

The vampire slayer?! Liz thought with alarm. _The woman Angel loved, the most powerful vampire slayer in recorded history wants to kill me? Could my life become any more bizarre?_

"Giles has a bookmobile full of information on her and only one conclusion," Buffy fired at her ex-hunny. 

"Wesley's got books." Angel replied. 

"Wesley was a Watcher for about a minute and a half. Forgive me if I have more faith in Giles,"

"So now your Watcher's better then mine?" Angel said petulantly. 

Liz didn't understand anything they were saying but she did recognize that their conversation suddenly took a turn from Godfather tension to the Honeymooners.

"If the paisley fits," Buffy said and Wesley looked down at his outfit. 

"You're being a child," Angel said and that just set Buffy off.

"Oh please! Every time we argue you hit me with the 'I'm two hundred years older and wiser' crap."

"Not every time we argue, only when you throw a tantrum," Angel shrugged. "Which is a good deal of the time, I suppose…"

As they argued Wesley, Gunn, Cordelia, and Liz started to climb out of the car. That is until Buffy noticed Liz again and froze her with a deadly stare.

"I'm done with this Lucy and Ricky routine," she told Angel. "I want to talk to your friend now."

She headed for the car but Angel grabbed her arm. 

"No, you're not."

Buffy looked down at the hand that was holding her arm and then she very slowly lifted her gaze up to Angel's eyes.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" She asked.

"You're not going near her," Angel said evenly. 

Buffy nodded and then sent her fist up into his jaw. Angel's head snapped back brutally but he didn't let go of her arm. Instead, he heaved her across the alley where she nearly took out Max and Michael who dived out of the way. Buffy rolled to a stop and leaped to her feet. She had a deadly gleam in her eyes and a two by four in her hand. 

She lunged at Angel, who dodged both right and left before he grabbed her wrist and hit her arm over his knee, jarring it from her grip. She used her other hand to deck him. He stumbled back, and she sent her foot into his stomach. He grabbed her ankle and twisted. She went with the turn to keep her ankle from breaking and did a spectacular spin in mid air. 

"What the hell did we stumble into, Max?" Michael asked in awe.

"I don't know," Max replied, now especially thankful that he wasn't Ford. "But we're getting Liz and we're getting out of here."

*****

Above them, on a rooftop that had a very pleasing view of the activities in the alley, they watched. 

"You need to stop them," she said, and her voice lost the child like quality.

"Why?" He asked, quite puzzled. 

"Don't you see what they're doing?"

He looked at the battle again.

"They look like they are going to kill each other," he said.

She glared at him and he saw the rage of a hundred years in her crystal blue eyes. 

"It's not a battle, it's _foreplay_."

*****

Buffy hit the ground on her backside. When Angel came at her again, she curled up her legs and sent them both into his stomach. He stumbled back against a brick wall. She jumped to her feet and backhanded him with one hand and then the other. 

Angel's friends watched from their side of the alley. 

"She's kickin' his ass," Gunn remarked, shaking his head.

"He's holding back," Wesley replied. 

"How can you tell?" Gunn replied, and he cringed as Angel's fist met with Buffy's jaw. 

On the other side of the alley, every time Max and Michael made an attempt to get to Liz Buffy, Angel or both of them fell or was launched in their path. Max looked over at Liz and she was looking at him desperately, not paying much attention to the incredible battle at all.

"I thought you said that he was a vampire," Michael asked, unable to take his eyes off of the fight. "Where are his fangs?"

And that's when Buffy gave Angel a punch that snapped his head back and when he recovered his face was contorted with fangs and ridges. 

"Never mind," Michael mumbled. 

Angel lunged at Buffy, sending them both to the ground. He pinned her for about a tenth of a second and then she rolled them both over and she was looking down at him. There was an incredibly long moment between them where they were frozen like that; caught like an interweaving statue of two warriors, locked in a never-ending battle. At that moment in time, they were equally strong, neither having an advantage. 

Then Buffy leaned down and kissed him. It was a long, hungry, sensual kiss—like she'd been starving and he was the only thing that could sate her. 

Liz's jaw dropped but no one around her seemed in the least bit surprised.

"Here we go," Cordelia muttered. 

Across the way, Michael shook his head.

"This has just gotten disturbing," he said. 

"Just?" Max said, having been disturbed way before then.

Buffy came up for air, and then promptly sent her elbow down into Angel's face. He caught her before she connected and used it to off balance her. He got to his feet and she backed away from him. They resumed like the kiss had never even happened.

"You don't fight fair," Angel remarked. 

"I fight to win," she replied, and she launched at him again. He used her own momentum to send her into the wall behind him. Then he turned on her and pinned her arms above her head. 

"Payback's a bitch," he said, and he leaned in and kissed her. 

"So," Cordelia said to Wesley, "this is going to be a while, should we go for Chinese?"

"I don't understand," Liz said.

"It's---"Wesley stumbled for words. "It's complicated." 

Gunn tipped his head and watched the couple. "It doesn't look that complicated to me."

Max and Michael took the opportunity to sprint across the alley. Max scooped Liz up into his arms and she held onto him in a death grip. Her world was completely upside down and he was the one thing that she could always depend on. 

"What is going on?" He whispered into her ear. 

She buried her head in his shoulder. 

"I don't know," she whispered. "Just hold me."

And he did—until the sky caught fire. 

There was an angry orange flash and suddenly the trash in the alley was on fire. Max and Liz looked up and great balls of fire were, literally, falling out of the sky. Max shoved Liz out of the path of one, while he fell back. The fireball exploded between them and rained sparks on Max. When his jacket started to smolder he reverted back to childhood and did a stop, drop and roll. 

When he looked back up everything around him was on fire. He jumped to his feet and looked around frantically.

"Liz!" He shouted. But already the smoke was so thick that he couldn't see anything at all. And balls of fire were still spiraling out of the sky. "Liz!"

He stumbled toward the last place she'd been and he saw a shape filtered through the smoke. But the smell of the burning trash, in addition to the smoke, were starting to choke him and his eyes were watering.

"Liz!" He hollered.

Then there was a face in front of him, full of skin-piercing fangs and angry yellow eyes. 

"Hello, Ford," the vampire from his vision said. "I could have sworn you were dead."

Then he swung his fist at him and everything went black.

*****

Liz stumbled out of the smoke and fire, doubled over coughing. She finally caught her breath and she turned back toward the inferno. She was about to shout out to Max when his name caught in her throat. Standing in front of her was Buffy.

"Liz Parker," she said. "I think it's about time the two of us had a little talk—girl to girl."


	7. Girl to Girl

When Max regained consciousness he found himself tied to a chair

Liz hadn't expected to be killed by a vampire slayer in a death-by-car scenario but the way that Buffy was driving she was sure that was how she was going to meet her end. Buffy may have been the most powerful slayer in recorded history but she was also the worst driver Liz had ever seen.

__

What a mundane way to go, Liz thought, still rather dazed from the long line of events that were currently shaping her existence. When they screeched to a stop in front of a motel room Liz was pleasantly surprised that she'd survived the car trip.

Buffy got out of the car and was at the passenger side before Liz could climb out. She grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward the motel room. Liz had already given her best effort to escape when Buffy dragged her away from the fire but it had all been in vain. She didn't know why she thought she could escape from someone who had just pulverized Angel.

Buffy popped open the door of the room and marched in.

"Giles, I---" She stopped abruptly and Liz saw why. The room had been ransacked. 

Buffy's grip on Liz's arm got even tighter. She turned on her with a deadly look.

"Where is he?" She demanded.

"Who?" Liz said, at a complete loss.

Buffy grabbed her by the shoulders and thrust her forward into the room. That's when Liz saw the words scrawled on the wall. They were written in blood: "Your Watcher for Liz."

******

When Max regained consciousness he found himself tied to a chair. He lifted his head and looked around but it was taking a minute for his eyes to focus He could hear the voices quite clearly, however. 

"Isn't he the guy that tried to turn Buffy over to Spike so Spike would make him into a vampire?"

"I thought it was him too, but it's not. This guy smells different then Ford."

"OK, way too much information."

Max finally focused and found the four people that had been with Liz standing around him. They were smudged and blackened from the fire. The vampire was back to looking normal again and he bent down to Max's eye level. Even without the fangs he was menacing. 

"You're going to tell me exactly why Buffy wants to kill Liz and how she recruited you to help her."

******

When Sheriff Valenti walked into the Crashdown Isabel saw that he was wearing the same expression he had the night he told them all that Alex had been killed. She felt all the blood drain from her face. Losing Alex had been the most painful thing she had ever had to deal with. She couldn't lose anyone else, especially not Michael or Max. She didn't know how she would live without them, a lone alien in a hostile world. 

Sitting across from her, Maria saw Isabel's expression and she turned and saw the sheriff and Kyle walking over to their table. Maria, having the same thought, started to slowly shake her head. They had been waiting for Michael and Max to return but they still hadn't. 

"There's been a fire in the warehouse district on the other side of town," he said slowly. "They haven't found anything yet but they did find Max's jeep about a block from where it started. There's no sign of Max or Michael."

*****

Max had no idea where he was only that it was dark and he could hear water dripping. His hands were tied behind his back and he was desperately trying to get them free. If he could do that then he might have a fighting chance. As it was, he was at the mercy of the vampire and his friends. And the vampire looked seriously pissed off. 

"Liz talked about you a lot," he was saying as he paced in front of Max like a caged tiger. "It was killing her that she couldn't let you know she was alright. She kept talking about how much she loved you and about all the obstacles you overcame to be together." He bent down and looked at Max with his dark eyes full of fury. "Then you show up here with the woman that's trying to kill her. I know Buffy and she doesn't go around killing people at random. Someone is setting Liz up."

Max watched in horror as the man whose face was two inches away from his transformed once more into a demonic visage. 

"Got any ideas on who?" The vampire asked. 

*****

"Where is he?" Buffy demanded.

"I don't know!" Liz cried. She w aved a hand at the bloody inscription. "And I don't know anyone that would do something like this!" 

Buffy pushed her and Liz hit the ground hard. 

"Why don't I believe you?"

And that is when Liz just lost it. She couldn't remember being so angry since Max told her he had gotten Tess pregnant. She had been so hurt and so enraged that she just went off on him and that's exactly how she felt now. 

"Me?!" She cried with such ferocity that Buffy actually took a step back. "I have had my head cracked open, I have discovered that vampires are real, I have been kidnapped three times in the last 24 hours. I have no idea why any of this is happening to me and I am sick and tired of people thinking that I do." She climbed to her feet. "You're the almighty vampire slayer, you figure it out."

"How do you know I'm a vampire slayer?" Buffy demanded. "What did Angel tell you? And what lies did you tell him to get him to protect you?"

"Angel came to me!"

"What?"

"I came home from a date with Max and he and Wesley and Cordelia were on my patio waiting for me. They said Cordelia had a vision that a blonde woman killed me and they came to stop it from happening."

"Cordy had a vision?" Buffy said, giving this some thought. 

"You know Cordelia?" Liz asked, trying to simmer down her temper, knowing it just might get her killed if she wasn't careful. 

"Yeah," Buffy muttered. "We went to high school together. She didn't have visions back then but I understand that she has them now. I don't know how reliable they are, however."

Liz threw her hands up.

"Then by all means kill me!" She cried. "Hey, you're not sure about me but why take chances? And if I am a normal high school girl with parents and a boyfriend who love me, well just chalk it up to a sacrifice for the good of mankind."

Buffy walked up close to her. 

"Don't tempt me," she said.

Liz met her unflinchingly. 

"I am human," she said. 

"She's right."

Both girls turned and found Spike standing in the door. Liz let out a gasp and backed away. Buffy didn't seem frightened at all.

"Spike, what are you doing here?"

"I, um, overheard you and Giles talking about your little field trip out here and I thought a holiday sounded nice."

"So you were ease dropping and you followed us here."

"Well if you want to put it that way—"

Buffy rolled her eyes and noticed Liz was practically cowering in the corner of the room. It surprised her after the way the girl had only moments ago been staring her down. She looked back to Spike who looked a little embarrassed. He gave Liz a small wave. 

"Hey," he said. "Sorry about that whole abduction thing."

"What?" Buffy cried.

"He's with you?" Liz said to Buffy, disdain dripping from her voice.

"Yes. No. Sort of. How do you know each other?"

"He threw Angel off the roof then he kidnapped me. Angel ran him down with his car."

Buffy turned an icy glare on Spike.

"You threw Angel off a roof?"

Spike stood up straighter and squared his shoulders.

"Yeah, I guess he's not the big man you thought he was. It was downright easy. I think he's going soft, if you asked me."

"You Threw Angel Off A Roof?" Buffy repeated, emphasizing every word.

Spike's shoulder's slumped. 

"He survived, didn't he?" He mumbled.

Buffy shook her head in disgust. 

"And why do you think Liz is human?"

"Because when I went for a taste she gave me a migraine to end all migraines."

"You tried to feed on her?!"

"I figured if you were just going to kill her it wouldn't matter."

Buffy turned on Liz again. She took a deep breath before she spoke. 

"Alright," She said. "Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you aren't going to bring about the end of the world."

Liz felt like she'd been hit with a sledgehammer. 

"The end of the world?" She stammered and she felt her stomach lurch. 

******

"I love Liz. She is my entire world," Max stressed, and if they knew the truth about him they would realize the significance of that statement. "I wouldn't do anything to hurt her."

"Then why were you with Buffy?" The vampire demanded. 

"I told you—she came to me. I didn't know she wanted to kill Liz."

The tall black guy walked over to the vampire.

"Someone may have set up Liz by putting Buffy on her trail but I don't think it was this kid," he said. 

Angel looked over at Max with his yellow eyes. Just as easily as the ridges and fangs appeared, they disappeared. 

"Maybe not," he agreed. 

But Max was tired of talking. 

"Buffy could have done anything to her by now!" Max shouted. 

"Then help us find her," Wesley interceded. "Where can we find her?"

The Coppertone girl went behind him and started untying Max's hands. 

"She gave me her cell phone number but I don't know where she was staying."

"Well that's a---"

"Look, lover, it's a party and we weren't invited," a sing song female voice said. 

Max felt the room charge with a sudden, terrifying tension. Everyone in the room turned toward the source of the voice. Max could see a tall man in his forties with slightly graying hair but the vampire was obscuring his view of the woman. The Coppertone girl resumed untying his hands but now she was moving with a frantic urgency. Max didn't know what was going on but he suddenly wanted her to hurry. 

"I should have known you were behind this," the vampire said. 

Max craned his neck to see whom he was talking to and then he had to blink. Twice.

"Yes," the new man with an English accented voice said. "You really should have."

The man lifted his hand and right before Max felt the most agonizing pain he'd ever felt in his life a name escaped his lips: "Agent Topolski?"


	8. Plan B

Liz's knees buckled underneath her and she slid down the wall

Liz's knees buckled underneath her and she slid down the wall.

__

"We become inseparable. And nothing comes between us ever again. Until—"

"The end of the world?"

"That's right." 

The words swirled in her head until she wanted to press her hands against her ears and shout for them to stop. Future Max had told her that if she didn't stop loving Max it could lead to the end of the world. He had told her that it would drive Tess away and without her it would make Max, Michael and Isabel weaker. And Tess had gone about as far away as she could imagine. Because of her. 

"Liz? Are you alright?"

Liz shook her head miserably. 

"You said I was going to bring about the end of the world," she whispered because her throat had gone dry. "You were right. You were right all along."

******

Max's head was still throbbing when he finally woke up. His eyes felt like they were going to fall out of his head but he forced them open anyway. What he saw made him wish that he hadn't. He, the vampire and his friends and another guy in glasses were chained to a wall. But while all of the others were strung up with their hands above their heads Max's were pulled behind him. And in front of him, Agent Topolski was getting a neck rub from the guy she had been with earlier.

"You have wonderful hands," she said.

"You have no idea," the guy with her whispered in her ear. She smiled, but pulled away from him. 

"I think I'll take a nap."

"Yes, my love," he said. "You'll need all your energy for tonight." 

She smiled and sauntered off seductively.

"She's going to eat you alive," the man next to Max said. "Literally, if there is a God in heaven." 

Max gave a start. He hadn't realized that the other man was conscious. Max looked at him and thought that he looked as bad as Max felt. But he was staring at the other man through his glasses with angry intensity. 

"Ripper!" The other man said with delight. "You're not giving me advice on women are you?" He walked toward them. "After all, your track record isn't exactly glorious, is it? There's Olivia, who just stopped coming to visit after she realized all the stories of demons and vampires weren't just things you said to get her into your bed. But she was the lucky one, wasn't she? She walked away before she met the same fate as Joyce Summers and Jenny Calendar."

The guy next to Max, "Ripper", lunged at him despite the chains latching him to the wall. He was within reach for a split second before his restraints pulled him back. The other guy just laughed as Ripper cried out in frustration. 

"How did you get away from the Initiative, Ethan?" He demanded to know. 

"Oh well, after the Adam debacle there was a shift in power. The Initiative was disbanded and I was placed in a position that was beneficial to some of the new regime."

"You bribed your way out."

"If you want to be crass, Ripper."

"How did you end up with Darla? Last I heard, she left LA when she couldn't get Angel to succumb to the dark side."

"Well, you see, that's the really interesting part. While I was in the custody of the Initiative, I met a woman who had an amazing resemblance to my beautiful Darla. I told her about it and she "arranged" to have me look for her. I didn't tell her that, at the time, I believed Darla was dead. Imagine my surprise when it turned out someone had resurrected her just when I needed her. It was like divine intervention."

He smiled and paced slowly in front of Ripper.

"When I found her, Darla told me that she bore a child back in her days as a courtesan."

"Agent Topolski," Max whispered.

Ethan's eyes turned toward Max. 

"Yes, you knew her great, great, great granddaughter, didn't you? It was very painful for her to find out that you were responsible for the death of her only living relative."

******

"Liz, what are you talking about?" Buffy asked. 

Liz was pacing the room frantically. 

"He traveled through _time _to warn me but I didn't listen did I? I wasn't strong enough to walk away from him. And now---"

Buffy grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a shake. 

"You are not making any sense. Explain to me what you're talking about." 

"Max, Future Max. He traveled back from fourteen years in the future to tell me that if I didn't break up with the Max in this time it would lead to the end of the world."

Spike snickered.

"You're telling me that because you didn't send your boyfriend packing the world is going to end?"

Liz glared at him. "Yes."

Buffy looked incredulous as well but she wanted to understand.

"Why? What is so important about you that would make this happen?"

"It's not me, it's Max." Liz said desperately. "Max has enemies. Enemies that can destroy this planet. And he was—" she fumbled to explain it without using the word alien. "He was suppose to marry Tess but Max was in love with me. Future Max told me that our being together eventually drove Tess away and because of that it made Max and his—family—weaker. They couldn't defend themselves or this planet as well without her and they lost." 

Liz started pacing again. 

"I did what he told me. I broke up with Max; I did everything I could think of to get him to stop loving me. I even made him think that I slept with my ex-boyfriend. We were apart for a long time but a part of me always wanted him back; a part of me wanted to tell him why I pretended. Then I almost lost him for real. My friend Alex was murdered and I was so intent on finding out who did it, I hurt him. I blamed him, I isolated him, I pushed him away--"

"And he went to Tess," Buffy said quietly.

Liz covered her mouth with her hand and she nodded. It took her a moment to find her voice again.

"They were—together, just like they were suppose to be."

"So what's the problem?" Spike asked. He sat on the bed and stared at her like he'd just gotten caught up in a really good soap opera.

"I found out Tess is the one that killed Alex."

"This is better then Passions!" Spike exclaimed.

"Shut up, Spike," Buffy said and then said quietly to Liz: "What happened after that?"

"Tess left. Max wanted to kill her but he couldn't because she was pregnant."

"Oh God."

"But it doesn't matter because she's gone. Max and I are back together and she's gone and it's going to happen anyway."

"The end of the world," Spike and Buffy said together.

******

"I don't know what you're talking about," Max said. "Miss Topolski was a guidance counselor at my high school until she disappeared."

"Oh, you do that quite well," Ethan cooed. "You've really perfected the whole normal, innocent teenager act."

"I am a normal teenager," Max insisted.

"Then why have you referred to her as _agent _Topolski up until now?"

Max fell silent and Ethan grinned.

"You knew she was a Federal agent. And when she couldn't bring you to her superiors, they killed her." Ethan shook his head. "Darla was devastated. I had to do what I could to comfort her."

"By feeding her revenge scenario," Ripper said. 

"She really has an incredibly creative mind. It's very titillating." Ethan said. "The plan was to get you to kill each other. I planted a few false clues about the Parker girl in one of your books," he said to Giles, "and your Slayer was suppose to kill her. Then Max here was going to go after you. The survivors, if there were any, would figure out that the carnage was a tragic mistake and wallow in their own self-pity for years to come. No on would escape unscathed."

He just about beamed with delight. 

"Darla and I concocted the perfect plan. Until the avenging angel showed up." He glared at Angel's unmoving form. "But every good plan has a fall back."

"Which is?" Ripper asked.

"Kill everyone involved."

******

"This doesn't make sense," Buffy said, starting to pace. "You said this Tess person killed your friend Alex?"

Liz nodded.

"Why?"

Liz tried to find words to explain. She had already told her too much. She hadn't said the word alien but Buffy now knew that Max was different. Liz had been sworn to secrecy about Max, Isabel, and Michael's alien origins but she was the one that had spilled the information to Maria and Alex. She had known that she could trust them but she knew nothing about Buffy.

"Tess had forced Alex to do something and she was afraid that he would tell Max about it so she killed him. It turned out that Tess was working with Max's enemies."

"So if Tess is a traitor then what makes you think she wasn't the one that caused the end of the world in the future?" Spike asked. 

"What?"

"It makes sense," he said with a shrug. "You and Max and your whole lovefest shaked her off so she went away, contacted his enemies, fed them the information they needed to know about Max and his weaknesses and strengths and pop goes the world. Your Future Max didn't know she was a traitor, or I assume he wouldn't have wanted you to force them to be together, so he assumed the reason they failed was because she defected."

Spike grinned.

"This Tess chick sounds like my kind of girl." 

Buffy glared at him.

"Or she would have been, back in my big bad days, this is…."

Liz let the words sink in. What he said made sense. Tess was a traitor and that never changed. If she was set to betray Max now, then she may have done so in the future that Future Max had described. More so if she was angry with him for rejecting her. As it became more real to her, the lighter the weight crushing her began to feel.

"I think it's safe to say that you won't be bringing about the destruction of the planet any time soon." Buffy said. 

Liz looked at her, puzzled.

"Why did you just do that?"

"What?"

"Help me. You're the one that convinced me that I might be the person that you came here to kill."

"Well, for one thing, Giles' book said that you were going to bring about the end of the world but it also specified that you were a demon with silver glowing skin and you can't be hurt by modern weapons like bullets. We researched you and there were reports that---"

"I had a silver hand print and survived a shooting," Liz finished for her. It was comforting to know that Buffy had done some research and had not just hunted her down based on one source of information. It was also disturbing. "But how could that information get into your book?" 

"Someone is setting you up," Buffy said decisively. "Someone wanted me to kill you."

"I vote on the fem fatale." Spike said, raising his hand. But Liz shook her head.

"Angel thought so too but when Tess left she went—well she went really far away."

"Back to the home planet?" Buffy asked. Liz's head shot up. 

"I never said alien."

"Well duh." Spike said.

"Listen," Buffy said, ignoring him. "I understand that this is probably a secret that you've had to live with for some time. I know what it's like. But whoever set this is motion is playing all of us and the only way we're going to get to the bottom of it is to trust each other."

Liz took a deep breath. She knew Isabel and Michael had been angry with her for letting Alex and Maria in on their secret identities but she knew in her heart that she could trust them with the secret. The same voice was now telling her the same about Buffy.

"OK," Liz said and she held out her hand. Buffy shook it. "Now we have to find Max."

"And Angel."

__


	9. Allies

Testing their new pact, Liz let Buffy drive once more

Testing their new trust pact, Liz let Buffy drive once more. She tried not to let the Slayer see how tight she was gripping her seat as they took turns on practically two wheels. She wanted something to take her mind off her terror so she broached something that had been bugging her. 

"Have you see aliens before?" Liz asked. "Because you didn't seem very surprised when I told you about Max."

"Once," Buffy said. "But it wasn't like Max. It was slimy." 

"Oh," Liz said, suppressing a shiver. 

"It's just that I see a lot of things that most people don't want to believe exist, so it's hard to stun me."

"Things like vampires."

Buffy nodded. She had been in combat mode when she confronted Angel in the alley. She had been angry to find they were on separate sides of the fence. At the time, she hadn't given much thought to the last time they'd seen each other; at her mother's funeral. Everyone had left the gravesite except for Buffy. Darkness fell but she still couldn't move. She sensed him walk up behind her. She didn't have to say a word; she just opened her hand and his hand slipped into it. There had been no question that he would be there; he would always be there for her. Always. 

"So how does a vampire slayer fall in love with a vampire?" Liz asked. 

"Well Angel's not like most vampires, he has—"

"A soul, he told me." Liz finished. Buffy tensed up a bit. The fact that Angel confided in this girl, for some reason, felt like a slight stab in her gut. Liz didn't seem to notice, instead she leaped on a question that she hadn't had time to ask Angel. "But if a demon takes over his body when he becomes a vampire then what happens to his soul? I mean it can't go far if he can get it back. And does it physically leave his body or is it just buried beneath the demon? Is the soul a tangible thing?"

She stopped when she noticed Buffy was looking at her strangely.

"I'm sorry, I want to be a scientist and I analyze everything," she explained. "Sometimes I have weird thoughts."

"It's OK, I've wondered about some of that stuff too but not in such depth. I don't know exactly how it works, I only know what Angel was to me." She drifted off into thought again but she shook her head clear. "So how does a normal teenage girl fall in love with an alien?"

Liz smiled shyly.

"Well that's easy when the alien is Max." Buffy nodded like she knew what Liz meant and that made Liz's heart skip for a second. She had forgotten that Buffy and Max had spent some time together. For some reason she didn't like the idea at all. But she cleared her throat and continued. "But it started when he saved my life. I was shot and I was dying, I think I may have died for a second or two, but then he healed me."

"He brought you back to life?"

"Yes, he—" Liz stopped when she saw the weird expression on Buffy's face. "What?"

"I—I'm sorry, it's just that I was recently brought back to life."

"What?"

"I died," Buffy said. "Well I've died twice, actually, but the first time it was only for a minute. The last time I was gone for—a lot longer." 

"How--?"

"It's a long story," Buffy said, wishing she hadn't mentioned it. Liz seemed to sense that and she just nodded. They drove in silence for a little while longer. Then Buffy took a sharp turn and nearly took out a mailbox. 

"You didn't die in a car accident did you?" Liz asked.

******

Max's wrists were beginning to bleed. Still he couldn't stop trying to break free. 

"You're going to bleed to death," 'Ripper' remarked.

"It seems like a better way to go then if I wait a while," Max said.

"You're probably right." He said. "You're Max Evans aren't you? Liz Parker's boyfriend."

Max looked up at him startled. 

"Ethan said that if Buffy killed Liz you would come after her. So I assumed you were the boyfriend that Buffy had met." 

"Buffy is the slayer that that guy was talking about? 

"She's the vampire slayer and Darla's primary target, I suspect. Why does Ethan think that you were responsible for Darla's great, great—this Topolski woman's death?"

"I—I don't know." Max stammered. "Why does she want you, Ripper?"

"Ripper" cringed. 

"Rupert, not Ripper. Most people just call me Giles. And Ethan Rayne doesn't need an excuse to reign down terror. It's his hobby. But Darla is the one to worry about. She is a vampire and she hates Angel and anyone associated with him because he killed her a few years back and she was in love with him."

"Killed her?" Max said slowly.

"Yes, some lawyers resurrected her."

"Of course," Max said, wondering if Giles was sane or not. "Do you think that Buffy has hurt Liz?"

Giles shook his head.

"No, she was uneasy about it from the start. I should have trusted her instincts."

"You're her father?"

Giles hesitated then shook his head.

"No, I'm her Watcher."

Max nodded like he knew what that meant.

"What's going to happen to us if we don't get out of here?"

"Nothing pleasant, I can assure you."

******

Liz picked up the cup with the Crashdown logo on it. She looked around the warehouse where Angel had tried to keep her safe. The entrance was blackened by fire but was otherwise the same. She and Buffy hadn't expected to find anyone there but maybe a clue as to where they'd gone. So far, they'd turned up nothing.

Buffy hadn't found anything in the alley and she didn't really expect to find anything in the warehouse but she had to be sure. She was standing near one of the windows when she heard a car pull up outside. She peeled some of the paper off and peeked out. A sheriff's patrol car had just pulled up. Police and Buffy never mixed. They never believed in any of the supernatural phenomenon that Buffy saw everyday and because they usually found her in the thick of things suspicion would always fall on her. 

"It looks like it's time to leave," Buffy called out to Liz.

Liz set the Crashdown cup down and followed Buffy toward the side entrance without question. They were both almost out the door when someone called out to her. Liz turned and saw the sheriff and a big smile broke out on her face. She ran over to him and threw her arms around him. Behind her Buffy hesitated. She thought since Liz was harboring an alien than she'd have the same opinion of law enforcement. Obviously not. 

"Liz, what are you doing here?" The sheriff asked. He looked over her head and saw Buffy. "And who is this?"

"Oh," Liz bubbled, overjoyed to see someone she knew and cared about. "This is Buffy, she's a vampire slayer."

"A what?"

"Liz?!"

She looked over the sheriff's shoulder and saw Maria, Isabel and Kyle walk in behind him and she ran to them with arms wide open. Buffy walked up to the sheriff and gave him a nervous smile. 

"Uh, hi." 

"My god," Maria cried, "Liz, where have you been?"

"It's a long story," she replied.

"Liz," Isabel said. "Do you know where Max and Michael are?"

"No," Liz said, "We're here looking for them."

"Well you found one of us."

Everyone turned and found Michael, standing in the doorway, dirty, smoke stained and looking like he wanted to fall down. Maria ran to him and threw her arms around him, nearly knocking him over. 

"Michael, my God, what happened to you?"

Everyone rushed to his side. When Maria let him go, he had to bend over and catch his breath. 

"You OK, man?" Kyle asked. 

Michael nodded, caught his breath and stood up again. 

"Max and I found Liz here a couple of hours ago and then the fire started coming from the sky. I saw Max get blind sided by that vampire and I followed them into the sewer. They had him tied to a chair and I was about to crash the party when someone else showed up. They did something that knocked everyone out and then they had a whole army of vampires come in and took them to the soap factory. There were too many for me to handle by myself so I came back here to get the Jeep and find reinforcements."

"That was a good idea," the Sheriff said, mildly surprised that Michael hadn't taken on the army himself. Although he wanted to get back to the whole vampire subject.

"Did you see who was in charge?" Buffy asked. 

Michael looked at her, realizing for the first time that she was there.

"You," he said lunging at her. "You're involved with this whole thing."

"Michael, no!" Liz shouted, jumping between Buffy and her alien friend. "She's not the enemy. She's here to help."

"Liz, she was out to kill you."

"Yeah, well we worked that out." 

"I don't know who she is, but she's not a part of this," Isabel said. "We don't trust outsiders, and we're going to handle this ourselves."

"Listen," Liz said. "We don't know exactly what is going on here but Buffy is involved in this too. And her boyfriend, Angel, was trying to help me when he kidnapped me. He and his friends saved my life. This whole thing involves all of us and we all have to work together if we want to save Max."

"The last person we trusted was Tess and see how that worked out." Isabel said, knowing playing the Tess card would bring Liz to her senses.

"I trust, Buffy." Liz said. "And she is a vampire slayer and Michael said there was an army of vampires. She is the only one in this room that knows what we're up against. She can help. And Michael, you said that a vampire grabbed Max at the fire?"

"Yeah, the guy you were taking off with—the vampire, the Coppertone girl and two other guys."

"The vampires took them to the soap factory too?"

He nodded.

"So they have Angel, too." Liz said. "Buffy has just at much at stake as we do. So much has happened to me that would explain why I feel the way I do and when we have time I will explain it but in the meantime, we have to work together. Please."

Everyone was silent until Buffy looked at Michael again and asked: "Did you see who was in charge of this vampire army?"

Michael looked at Liz, whose eyes begged him to tell her. "Some English guy," he said, and then he looked at all of his friends. "And agent Topolski."

Buffy had no idea who agent Topolski was but the mention of her name sent shock waves through the whole group.

"What?" Maria asked.

"Kathleen Topolski?" The sheriff said.

"I thought she was dead." Kyle said.

"It was her," Michael stressed. "But they kept calling her by a different name. They kept calling her Darla."

"Darla?" Buffy said.

"Do you know her?" Liz asked. 

"I don't know an agent Topolski but I know a Darla." She looked at Michael. "What did she look like?"

"Blond, blue eyes. She talked with this sing song voice, like she was a little girl or something—"

"Darla." Buffy whispered. 

"Who is she?" Liz asked.

Buffy looked her in the eyes and said: "She's my Tess."

And in that moment they shared a single moment of shared clarity and an unbreakable bond was formed. 

******

While the others came back to consciousness slowly, Angel's eyes snapped open and his head popped up like he'd been awaken from a horrifying dream.

"Darla," he said. 

"Why do I even bother with dry clean only clothes?" Cordelia muttered to no one in particular. 

"Does anyone else's head feel like a two hundred pound demon just played basketball with it?" Gunn asked.

"A knockout spell," Wesley said matter of factly. "They don't usually have such a hangover effect. Ethan must have added that on his own. Sadistic bastard."

Max stared at them and wanted to shout: _"Excuse me, you just woke up chained to a wall?! Am I the only one concerned?"_

"Giles," Angel asked. "Where's Buffy?"

"I don't know, but Darla and Ethan are expecting her. They have an army of vampires awaiting her arrival."

"She'll come anyway," Angel said. 

"So will Liz." Max said, regretfully. Despite the danger she would come. 

"Liz can't defend herself like Buffy can." Angel said.

"I doesn't matter," Max said. He remembered how she'd stood up to both of their moms when they'd been caught in the eraser room, how she'd doggedly pursed Alex's killer, how she'd gone after him when he'd been captured by Agent Pierce. "She rescued me before. She's the bravest person I know. She'll come."

******

__

Liz tilted her head back and closed her eyes. 

She felt the warm desert wind caress her skin and she could hear the song on the radio even above the roar of the Jeep's engine.

*Look at the stars, look how they shine for you

And everything you do….*

Liz opened her eyes and stared at the twinkling stars above her head. She stretched her hand out to one of them, wanting to touch them. She heard Max make a strange noise and she turned and smiled at him. 

"They remind me of you," she said. "Of how you make me feel."

He hit the brakes and pulled the Jeep over to the side of the road. In one fluid motion he'd unsnapped his seat belt and he'd slid over to her. She saw, with continued amazement, all the love he had for her in his beautiful brown eyes. He leaned down and kissed her and he took her to those stars. 

"Liz?"

Liz looked away from the desert speeding by and she turned and looked at Buffy. 

"Where were you?" She asked.

Liz shrugged sadly. "In a galaxy far, far away." 

Maria reached out to her from the backseat and gave her shoulder a squeeze. 

But Buffy stared at her a moment longer before she turned her eyes back to the road. 

"That gives me an idea," she said.

******

"This is insane," the sheriff mumbled twenty minutes later as they overlooked the soap factory. He put his binoculars to his eyes again and looked down at two vampires patrolling the grounds. He'd believed in aliens because his dad had convinced him that they existed. Even after his dad was committed to an institution, something in him had always believed. Even so, the first time he'd seen Michael use his powers he'd still been blown away. But vampires—that was just something he never thought could really exists. 

Buffy, observing the same scene next to him, pushed herself up.

"Welcome to my world," she said. 

"What now?" Isabel asked.

"How about something?" Michael said. 

"We have to know what we're up against," Liz reasoned.

"We know. Let's move."

"No," Buffy said.

"Hey," Isabel said. "We said you could come along, but who exactly put you in charge?"

"We're going to go in as soon as—"

Then headlights suddenly pinned all of them to their spots. Two vehicles came rumbling to a stop in front of them. Michael clenched his fist and sheriff Valenti laid his hand on his gun. The doors of the cars opened and three women and two men emerged. They were silhouetted by the headlights at first, each carrying a weapon. Nothing as modern as guns, mind you, but crossbows and swords and stakes. Then they came closer and the small band of aliens and friends could see their faces. They were a gang of young people, not much older then they were, but with obvious more battle time. 

"The Scooby gang is all here!" The dark haired guy said enthusiastically and Buffy smiled.


	10. The Scoobies

"Well, well, well

"Well, well, well. Take a look ladies. Buffy leaves for a couple of days and next thing you know, she's got herself a new posse. I, for one, am dismayed and disillusioned."

Buffy smiled fondly at the rumpled but handsome dark-haired young man. 

"You know you guys are irreplaceable," she said. 

"In that case I think a hug is in order," he said. He opened his arms and the girl next to him gave him an elbow to his ribs. He cringed and looked at her. "Anya, remind me to go over—again—the concept of lighthearted humor with you."

The petite red head on his other side walked over to Buffy and gave her a hug. 

"Hi, Will," the slayer said. "I'm glad you could get here in time."

"That's what the Scoobies are here for," her friend replied.

A few feet away Isabel crossed her arms. The group had initially looked impressive with their weapons and confidence but seeing them more clearly and realizing they weren't much older then she and the others lost them some of their impressiveness. She looked at Michael.

"We're trusting our brother's life to a group called the Scoobies?"

If Buffy heard her, she ignored it. She turned toward Liz and her friends and introduced the new arrivals.

"Everyone, these are my friends: Xander, Willow, Tara, and Anya."

The white-blond haired guy that looked like Billy Idol coughed loudly.

"And Spike," she added. 

"Um," Liz said, because no one else was saying anything. "I'm Liz, this is Maria, Isabel, Michael, Kyle, and sheriff Valenti."

"Well," Xander said, eyeing Isabel, Maria and Liz. "I gotta say, Buff, if you're going to trade up, you did an admirable job."

Anya elbowed him again, harder this time. Xander nodded.

"OK, that one I deserved."

Buffy turned back toward Willow. "And Dawn is…"

"We left her at home like you asked. She's staying with her friend across the street."

Buffy nodded in approval.

"So what's the story?" Xander asked. "On the phone you just told us to pack up the slayer bag o' tricks and get out here."

Buffy turned to look over the view of the soap factory.

"We have a hostage situation in that factory. Six people—Angel, Cordelia, Wesley, another associate of Angel's named Gunn, Giles, and a guy named Max Evans. We estimated about twenty to twenty-five vamps down there." She paused. "We know there are two people in charge. One of them is Darla."

"Darla?" Willow whispered. 

She and Xander both looked respectfully frightened but Tara and Anya both looked at each other in puzzlement. 

"Who's Darla?" Tara whispered to her. Anya shrugged. 

"Well I hate to make a gloomy situation worse but--" Willow said, as she handed Buffy a business card. "I found it in the book that Giles was referencing."

Buffy looked down at the card and only one word was printed neatly across it: SOON.

"Ethan Rayne," Buffy said shaking her head. 

"Who is Ethan Rayne?" Liz asked.

"Think of Darla as Catwoman and Ethan Rayne as your type-A Riddler," Xander said. 

"Can we please lose the cartoon references and get down to business?" Isabel said. "My brother is down there and he needs our help."

"And I don't know why you think this ringleader is some arch enemy of yours but I saw her and she was agent Topolski—alien hunting FBI agent." Michael said. 

"I don't know what game she's playing," Buffy said. "But whatever name she's going by, we're going to take her down." She looked back at the factory. "I just want to get an idea of the interior."

"Well we've been in there," the Sheriff said, leaving out the fact that it hadn't been a pleasant evening for him. "But there was a fire and I know the fire department tore down some walls." 

"We need to do some recon, then." She turned to Liz. "Ready?" 

******

Liz was trembling as she stepped into the abandoned soap factory and she hoped nobody noticed. It was foolish that she was scared but she couldn't help herself. She looked around carefully. The last time she had been in the empty building it had been on one of the greatest nights of her life. She had entered the building that night with her heart racing and her hands trembling, but for entirely different reasons. She was meeting Max at the rave that was going on. It was going to be their first date. Then a fire started, and Sheriff Valenti arrested she and Alex and things just went down hill from there. Until Max came to her rooftop later that night and they kissed for the first time. 

She straightened her back and marched into the building a little more determined. If Max was there, she was going to find him. The building had changed dramatically—the fire had been more extensive then she thought and most of the walls were blackened from it and she had to step over piles of rubble as she made her way deeper into the building. A few times, when she heard footsteps or voices, she would have to hide. The vamps she saw didn't bother to try and look human, probably because they didn't have to, so she felt like she was a little girl again, in a strange dream where monsters were chasing her through a maze. 

But at each encounter, she reported what she saw and would move on dutifully after the danger passed. Finally she reached the main warehouse and what she saw stopped her cold. 

"Oh my God," she whispered. 

"Liz, what do you see?" Buffy asked. 

"I'm in the main room," she whispered, trying to keep herself from bursting into tears. "They're all here. They're chained to the wall—" 

Max was getting lightheaded from losing so much blood so at first he thought he was imagining her. He looked up and Liz was standing across the vast room, looking at him, horrified. 

"Liz?" Angel said, and Max realized he wasn't imagining her at all.

She walked toward them slowly. She looked horrified and on the verge of tears. Her mouth was moving but Max couldn't hear what she was saying.

"Liz?" Buffy said.

"They're all alive," she replied. "But they're chained up with some really thick looking chains. They all look really awful. We have to get them out of here Buffy."

"We will."

"Liz, get out of here!" Angel said, but Liz kept approaching.

"Is she insane?" Cordelia asked.

"It's not really her," Max said, realizing with flooding relief that Liz was astral projecting herself into the room. She walked up to him and she looked so distressed at seeing him that he tried to smile and he said: "I'm OK."

She forced a smile and she reached out to touch his face. Her fingertips brushed through his cheek like a feather-light kiss. 

"I love you," he said.

"I love you," she replied, although he couldn't hear the words.

"Max!" Wesley cried. 

Max heard it too, Darla's wicked laughter nearby. He pulled back and looked at Liz's image. 

"Go!" He urged. 

She nodded.

"Now Maria," she said. 

"Liz I don't know about this…."

Liz saw movement out of the corner of her eye. 

"Maria!"

Then she vanished just as Ethan and Darla entered the room.

"What was that?" Darla asked, marching over to her prisoners. 

"What was what?" Giles asked.

"You know what," she hissed and she grabbed Max by the chin. "If I squeeze hard enough your head just might pop off."

Max looked her in the eyes and replied: "Are you sure?"

"I don't know what you are, exactly, but you bleed just like any other human. If you bleed then I can hurt you."

"What's the matter, Darla? You couldn't have a man so you decided to pick on a boy?" Angel said. 

She turned on him and her face contorted into it's vampire visage. 

"I had you, Angel, and you weren't man enough."

"Yes," Ethan piped in. "Now she has someone who meets her standards."

"0 negative?" Angel replied. "Because that's all she really wants you for. Once she gets what she wants you're nothing to her but brunch."

"Now Angel you had your chance and you failed to satisfy her."

"Is that what she told you? Because I remember it differently."

"Oh please!" Cordelia cried. "They never even slept together. If they did Angel would be the one kissing Darla's ring, instead of psycho prank boy here."

Darla and Angel both looked at Cordy. Darla was smiling and Angel looked rather sheepish. 

"You didn't!" She cried, horrified. "Vampire my ass, you are such a man!"

"The curse was never about sleeping with someone, it was about a moment of bliss." Angel said. "And I never found bliss with Darla."

"No, but you found it with that cheerleader?!" Darla snarled.

"Yes."

"Well then what will you feel when you watch her die?"

"You went up against Buffy before and you ended up on the wrong end of a stake."

"Yes, stabbed in the back by my beloved Angel," she ran her hand over his cheek. "But this time you won't be there to help her."

******

"Are you sure you're OK, Liz?"

"Maria, I'm fine," she said, although her cheek did still sting a little from the slap Maria had used to bring her back to her body. "We'll have to develop a better way to do that in the future."

Maria nodded and Xander walked up and dropped a heavy wood chest in front of them. He opened up the lid and revealed an assortment of wicked looking weapons.

"Stock up," Buffy ordered. "To kill a vampire you can behead them or, my favorite, a well placed stake to the heart." Buffy tucked a stake into her waistband and then tossed one to Spike, who flinched and dived out of the way. 

"Hey, watch that!"

Liz reached into the box and pulled out a crossbow. 

"Don't shoot your foot off with that," Spike said. 

Liz aimed it at him and fired. Spike had to hit the deck. 

"Hey!" He shouted.

Liz lowered the crossbow and looked at Buffy.

"I took archery four summers in a row."

Buffy smiled and then continued.

"Holy water will repel them but it won't kill them. Vampires are stronger then humans so don't let any get close enough for you to find out how strong." She looked at the sheriff. "And bullets don't work on them but they can use them against you if they get a hold of your gun so you might want to leave that behind."

He hesitated but then unholstered his weapon. 

"Guns don't work but pointy little sticks do?" Isabel said sarcastically. 

"Well you wouldn't feel so sparkly if someone drove a pointy stick through your heart," Anya said. 

"Alright," Buffy broke in. "I'm going to take point. I'll take out as many as I can. Tara and Willow will follow, knocking out as many as they can. Anya and Xander, you'll cover them." Everyone nodded. "And Spike—"

"Let me guess, I get to play babysitter to the newbies." 

"I want you to cover them, yes."

"We're bringing up the rear?" Michael said.

"It safer that way. We all have experience with this sort of thing. You'll only get in our way. Use the weapons to defend yourselves but keep clear of the fight as much as you can."

"My brother is in there!" Isabel shouted. "And you have no idea what we can do."

"Really," Buffy asked. "What can you do?"

__

I can vaporize you without messing up my manicure, she thought. But she didn't want to spoil her cover. She didn't know what Liz had told the slayer but from the way she'd been treating them she didn't think Buffy knew what they were or how powerful they were. 

"It'll be fine," Liz said, quickly. She looked at Michael and Isabel, nodding vigorously. They both fell silent. 

"Then let's move out."


	11. The Pod Squad

"Step lively, children," Spike said, lighting a cigarette

"Step lively, children," Spike said drolly as he lit a cigarette. "We don't want to miss clean up detail."

The Pod squad resentfully fell into line behind Buffy and her gang. Once they stepped foot on the grounds of the abandoned soap factory the effect was almost immediate. Like an army of cockroaches, the creatures of the night came creeping out of their hiding places. 

"Oh my God," Maria said, watching the glowing eyes come closer. She grabbed Liz's arm in a death grip.

Isabel had to stifle a scream with her fist. Max's description didn't even begin to describe the monsters that were surrounding them. Michael clenched his fist open and closed, getting ready to use his powers. Sheriff Valenti put a protective hand on his son's shoulder. 

"Grandpa didn't even scratch the surface, did he dad?" Kyle whispered. 

"Looks that way," the sheriff replied. 

Spike, however, looked delighted. He was bouncing on his feet like a boxer before a fight. 

"God, I haven't been able to kill anything in ages," he said. 

Buffy stopped and looked all around her, assessing the situation with a dark glare at all the vampires. She separated her feet in a sturdy stance; she clenched her fists and drew them back.

"I'm not getting any younger," she said, and with that the creatures surged forward. 

Isabel, Maria, Kyle and Valenti had never seen Buffy fight before. They were stunned by how someone so small could be so powerful. She launched one vamp with a kick to the stomach and turned and staked the one coming up behind her. They were floored when it burst into dust. 

The rest of her friends were no less impressive. Tara and Willow linked their left hands together and waved their right ones in the air. The vampires charging them bounced back like they'd hit a wall. On one side of them Anya was waving a sword at another of the creatures of the night while on the other side Xander swung an axe and lopped off the head of yet another. 

Spike gave a cry of delight when a few of the vampires finally turned their attention to him and the Pod squad. He threw himself into the fray with glee. 

Buffy dusted a few more of her enemies and then she turned to Willow and Tara. 

"Blast it!" She shouted. 

The two young women put their hands in front of them and the door of the factory blew into a thousand pieces. 

"Liz!"

Liz joined Buffy in front.

"This way," she said, and she led them inside. Thanks to Liz's earlier exploration Buffy knew where the vamps were hiding and made short work of them which allowed them to move quickly through the building. But as they got closer to the main warehouse they both became aware of the sound of music. 

__

She was a January girl

She never let on how insane it was

In that tiny kinda scary house

By the woods

By the woods 

By the woods

It caused a chill to slither down Buffy's spine. The music was an odd touch, not Darla's style at all. More like…She shook her head. 

"It's meant to distract us," she said out loud. Liz nodded but the ephemeral voice singing was freaking her out. 

Buffy and Liz, with their band of friends behind them, entered the main chamber of the factory. The hostages were all exactly where Liz had found them earlier, only now there was a strange apparatus erected in front of them. It looked like a catapult of some kind, with rows of stakes aimed directly at the chained up prisoners. 

Darla walked up to it and ran her hand down the side lovingly. 

"Ingenious isn't it?" She said. 

Liz shook her head, she looked and sounded just like Agent Topolski but there was an evil aura around her that she could feel all the way across the room. 

"That's not what I would call it, " Buffy said, approaching the vampire cautiously. Behind her back, Liz saw her carefully pulling a stake out of her waistband. "But sick and twisted come to mind."

"Ah, the cheerleader," Darla said. "It's been a long time. I see that you didn't age well at all."

"I'm not the one that will be blowing out a forest fire on my birthday cake this year. Not that you'll make it that long."

"You know, Buffy, I don't know why we're enemies." Darla replied, grabbing a switch on the machine. "We have so much in common. Both of us have died, both of us have been brought back to life, both of us are going to watch a man we once loved die." 

Buffy snapped the stake out and launched it at Darla. The vampire backed up just enough for it to miss her and embed in the wall behind her. 

"Your aim hasn't improved any, I see," She said, and she slammed the lever on the devise down.

"No!" Liz screamed, running toward the machine, expecting the stakes to launch at Max and the others. 

"Liz, no!" Buffy screamed, running after her. She expected Darla to take Liz out but the vampire disappeared. They both reached the machine at the same time. The others followed them into the room. 

"Liz, get out of here!" Max shouted, but Liz was too busy trying to lift the lever back up into its original position. 

"It must be on a timer," Liz said, struggling with the lever. 

Buffy tried helping her but the lever wouldn't budge. Then the stakes started to slowly ease back, preparing to spring forward at the hostages. 

"Willow!" Buffy cried, hoping the witch could disable or disintegrate the machine. But as soon as Willow took a step forward an arrow landed at her feet. Then another. Everyone looked up and in the rafters, completely circling the room, were vampires. Most of them had stakes and arrows and other vampire killing weapons. 

"That Darla sure likes the irony, doesn't she?" Xander whispered. 

"She didn't want to leave anything to chance."

They turned and found Ethan Rayne blocking the door they'd just entered through. He was smiling smugly while two burly looking vampires stood behind him. 

"She hates loose ends." He said, then the door slammed behind him. He turned and found the vampires gone and the exit shut, sealing him in with all of Darla's enemies.

"Apparently," Buffy said. 

Then all hell broke loose. 

Suddenly arrows were pouring down on them like rain. Vampires were leaping down, surrounding them. The machine was still ticking away and, as if to compensate for the noise of the battle, the weird music got louder. 

__

Black-dove black dove

You're not a helicopter

You're not a cop out either

Black-dove black dove

You don't need a space ship

They don't know you've already lived

On the other side of the galaxy

Liz pressed her back against the machine, trying to turn it away from the hostages and that gave Buffy an idea. 

"Xander!" She shouted above the din. She put her hands out and he seemed to understand. He pulled back his arm and sent the axe he was holding straight at her. She caught it like he'd tossed her a bag of chips. Then she turned and went to Angel. He lowered his head and she swung the axe, snapping the chains and freeing him. 

"Help me move it," Buffy said.

He nodded and they joined Liz in trying to swing the whole machine away from the others. It slowly began to move, but not fast enough to make a difference. Liz looked around desperately, trying to come up with another idea, then she saw Isabel. 

She and Liz's other friends were fighting off vampires as best they could but the vamps were concentrating their efforts on the people they knew were dangerous so the aliens weren't under such heavy attack. 

"Isabel!" Liz shouted. "Isabel help!"

Isabel looked over at Liz just as Liz heard the springs in the machine draw back one final time. 

"Now!"

Isabel put her hand out and the air crackled with the energy. The machine suddenly jolted and then it swung around like a revolving door, sending Angel, Buffy and Liz spiraling across the floor and the deadly stakes aimed in the direction of the battle. 

"Hit the deck!" Michael cried. 

Most of the Scoobies and the Pod Squad had seen the struggle with the machine so they dived for the floor. Most of the vampires had not. So when the air filled with the wood torpedoes half the vampires exploded into dust. 

There was a moment of amazement, when most eyes turned to Isabel. Then the remaining vampires, most still in the rafters and well above the barrage of stakes, leaped back into action.

"Interesting friends," Angel said as he helped Liz to her feet. 

"You have no idea," Liz said and she went running back to Max. She threw her arms around him. 

"Um, hey," Cordelia said, "still chained to a wall here."

"Free the others," Buffy said to Angel as she swept the room with a purposeful look.

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going after Darla." She looked up and the vampire was above them in the rafters, overlooking the scene like a queen.

Angel reached out and grabbed her arm as she turned to go. 

"Be careful," he said. She smiled and nodded. 

Angel turned and decked the vampire coming up behind him with an axe. The axe flipped in the air as the vamp went down and Angel plucked it out of the air and went to free his friends.

Buffy took a running start, took one leap to the top of the stake machine, and then another to the rafter next to Darla. The vampire didn't seem surprised or troubled. Instead, she gazed down at the chaos below. 

"You've obtained some interesting allies." She said. 

Buffy took a chance and glanced down. Her friends were holding their own but Liz's friends weren't doing as well. Isabel was repelling the vampires with whatever power she had but it looked like she was getting tired. Kyle and Maria were splashing holy water at everything that moved. The sheriff was swinging at any invaders with the sword that he'd been given. Michael looked frustrated as he fought with only his hands. Spike was trying to keep the vamps at bay and even stood back to back with Ethan in fighting them off. Which didn't surprise Buffy at all. Ethan hopped on any bandwagon that would save his hide. 

"Call your army off," Buffy said, "or you're going to be dust and I guarantee no one will bring you back this time."

Darla looked at her and smiled. 

"Good allies are a powerful thing," she said and that's when a carefully manicured hand wrapped around Buffy's throat from behind. 

"Grandmother," a delighted voice cried. "You brought me a present."

"I asked you not to call me that," Darla said.

"Drusilla," Buffy whispered as the vampire's nails began to dig into her throat. 

"Would you like a bite?" Dru asked Darla. 

"Bite this," Buffy said and she lifted up her feet and sent them into Darla's stomach. Caught off guard, she stumbled backwards and fell off the rafter with an angry scream. Then Buffy knocked her head back into Drusilla's face, breaking the vampire's grip on her throat. She turned and faced the insane creature. 

"You stole Spike from me," she said with a pout. 

"Want him back?" Buffy asked, taking a swing that Dru backed out of the way of. 

"Can you hear the music in my head?" She asked.

"It's not in your head," Buffy said. "You're playing it over the sound system."

"But the moon will soon be screaming."

Buffy shook her head. 

"You do know that nothing out of your mouth makes any sense, don't you?" 

"Because of my bad daddy."

Buffy swung and connected this time. Dru fell backwards, but she grabbed Buffy's wrist as she went down and they both went crashing to the floor below. 

Angel had just finished freeing everyone but Max when the two women fell from the ceiling, still fighting like neither noticed they were falling through the air. 

"Drusilla?" he said. 

"What?" Liz asked, more concerned that Max was still tethered to the wall.

"It just keeps getting worse," he mumbled. He turned back to Max and Liz and broke the axe he was holding over his knee. "You're going to have to saw it off."

He'd used the axe to free the others because their hands were tied above their heads but Max was going to be trickier because his were tied behind his back. He handed Liz the broken axe, now a more manageable size. Then he turned to go aid Buffy but he found himself faced with six vampires. 

Liz took the broken axe and positioned it over the chains on Max's wrists. Cordelia grabbed the other side and helped Liz saw. Gunn, Wesley and Giles found makeshift weapons and used them to help Angel protect the women while they worked. 

Both Drusilla and Darla circled Buffy like a pair of sharks on a feeding frenzy.

Buffy had never faced them both before. Individually both Dru and Darla had almost killed her. Together, she was grimly aware, they just might succeed. She sent her fist into Dru's face but Darla caught her from behind and spun her in her direction. Then Dru's hands were grabbing her around the throat again as Darla closed in on her. Buffy gave a quick look around and everyone else in the room was occupied with their own self-preservation. She was wondering what would happen if she died three times. Would that really be her limit? But then someone grabbed Darla's shoulder and turned the vampire away from Buffy.

Darla snarled at the interruption and she came face to face with an athletic looking, dark haired, dark eyed young woman. 

"Who the hell are you?" Darla demanded.

The young woman smiled with a dangerous glint in her eye.

"I'm Faith," she said, slamming Darla viscously in the face. "The vampire slayer."


	12. No One Lives Forever

It's been a while since I could look at myself straight

Buffy didn't know what stunned her more. The way Darla landed flat on her ass at her feet or the fact that it was Faith who put her there. The only one more flabbergasted seemed to be Darla. 

"There can only be one Slayer at a time!" She cried. 

"Boy have you been out of the loop," Faith replied, sending a roundhouse kick into Darla's jaw. "I guess being dust particles will do that for you." She looked up at Buffy. "Hey, B."

Buffy shook off her amazement and struck out at Dru, who was still holding her by the throat. She'd have to deal with Faith later. 

*****

"Good lord," Wesley said, just after he vaporized a vampire. 

"What now?" Max asked as Liz and Cordelia worked fervently to free him.

"Faith," he replied grimly. 

Max followed his gaze to the young woman who was fighting beside Buffy. Fighting just like Buffy, he realized. Only she looked like more of a street fighter while Buffy seemed more in control. 

"Is she one of the good guys?" Max asked.

"Considering she held me captive and tortured me for hours, I'm probably not the one to ask." Wesley replied. He turned to Angel. "You brought her here?"

"I thought we might need her," he replied. "It looks like I was right."

Wesley nodded grimly and took a viscous swing at the nearest vampire. 

******

Michael was ready to explode. He was cracking vampires over their skulls with a mace but they just kept coming. What was killing him was that he knew he could vaporize them but because he still didn't have total control over range he was afraid to. With vampires and allies mixed together he didn't want to accidentally take out some of the Pod Squad or the Scoobies. So he had to be satisfied with brute force. 

******

Isabel didn't know how much longer she could hold on. She had never used her powers for so prolonged a period and she was on the verge of collapse. She looked over at her brother, still chained up. He couldn't be more conspicuous if he had a target painted on his chest. But Liz was at his side, working feverishly to free him and her new friends were fiercely protecting her so she could do it. Isabel had resented Liz's intrusion into her life in the beginning but Max had been right about her. She really would die for him. Just like Alex had more or less died for her. Died because of her. She wished she had appreciated him more when he was alive. But thinking of him, and thriving on the grief that still filled her, gave her more strength. She dredged up some more energy and she launched another attack.

******

Maria felt pretty useless. She was almost out of holy water, which didn't do much anyway, except keep the vampires at a distance. She didn't have any special alien powers and Liz, her comrade in normalcy, had abandoned her to join her new Superfriends. It was weird, Maria often thought of herself as a freak-magnet. If any weirdoes came into the Crashdown, they inevitably took a table in her section. She wondered if Liz had the same ability. Only hers was supernatural freak-magnet. 

******

Kyle and his dad had developed a rather smooth working system. Kyle used his strength, momentum, and wrestling training to send any vampires that went after him spiraling at his dad. While his dad waited with a poised axe. The pile of dust at his feet was growing quite large when their system hit a snag. A vampire finally caught on and attacked the sheriff from behind. 

"Dad!" Kyle shouted, sprinting for his father as the sheriff wrestled with the vamp. Kyle had just reached him when the creature burst into a cloud of dust. Kyle blinked and Valenti turned around and found Maria, blowing on a jagged piece of wood.

"Color me impressed, Deluca," Kyle said.

"Even Earth girls can kick ass," she replied with a wide, shiny Maria smile.

******

Willow knew Tara was getting tired. She also knew that Tara would never let her know. People thought Tara was meek but Willow knew better. She knew how strong she was, how determined. 

Willow knew they had to get everyone out and soon. She could see that Buffy's new allies were starting to falter. She also saw Faith make her grand entrance and decided that if Faith was their salvation then they were in deep trouble, indeed.

******

Faith was having the time of her life. 

__

You worry too much

You make yourself sad

You can't change fate so don't feel so bad

Enjoy it while you can

It's just like the weather

So quit complaining, brother, 

No one lives forever.

She'd been locked up in the pen so long she couldn't remember the last time she had a real challenge. And pounding on vamps was her favorite form of recreation. It was what she was born to do. But she also knew she couldn't let the adrenaline rush get to her. It was when that blood lust burned inside of her that it spilled over onto everything else around her. That was when she lashed out at potential friends, when she forgot that she was suppose to be one of the good guys. That's when she heard the Mayor whispering in her ear the loudest. 

The Mayor had been the closet thing to a father that she'd ever had. He'd been evil, sure, but he'd also been good to her. And he had never asked her to do anything she didn't want to do. He had tapped into her dark side. Then Angel tapped into her good side. He knew what it had been like to be evil, but more importantly, he knew what it was like to feel the guilt for all those deeds. 

When he sent for her she didn't even hesitate. And now here she was, in the thick of a hot battle and there was even music playing like a sound track to her destruction. It was like a mini reward for her turning away from evil. 

__

Let's have a party

There's a full moon in the sky

It's the hour of the wolf and I don't want to die

*****

"Is that Faith?" Anya asked Xander as he wrestled with a vampire that was trying to get the axe out of his hand. 

Xander caught a glimpse of the slayer when the vamp started swinging Xander around like a dog with a chew toy. 

"Looks like her," he said.

"She's quite pretty," Anya remarked. "I can see why she was the first female you had sex with." 

The vampire shook his head like he misheard her and Xander used the distraction to punch the vamp in the face. 

"Do you still find her attractive?"

Xander hit the vampire with his other fist and shook his head.

"Her whole, I'm-going-to-ally-myself-with-the-demon-snake-Mayor-and-kill-everything-in-my-path-phase was really a turn off." 

"But I thought you liked women that had an edge to them. I thought you liked the fact that I'm an ex-demon," she said, hitting the vampire over the head and knocking him to his knees. 

Xander swung his sword and lopped the head off the vampire, causing it to burst into a cloud of dust.

"An edge, Anya," he assured her. "Not an arsenal full of daggers."

"Then I shouldn't pull her hair out or use any other form of female territory marking techniques?"

Xander glanced at Faith pummeling what was left of a vampire. 

"Probably not."

******

Darla was tired of it all. She had wanted to kill Angel and Buffy with her own hands but failing that, seeing them dead by any means would suit her just fine. She managed to get away from Faith, who was having a grand time tearing apart some of Darla's less intelligent minions. Now she was focused on Max Evans who was still strung up while his little girlfriend worked to free him. 

She pulled out a knife and walked in front of the boy, making sure that he could see her. Liz looked up from her work and saw her. She started shaking her head. 

"This is for Kathleen!" Darla shouted as she flung the blade at the young man's heart. Liz screamed and jumped in front of her boyfriend. But true to form, Angel was there. He stepped forward and took the blade in the shoulder. 

Darla walked up to him and smiled.

"How does it feel?" She asked him. "Having all your girls in one place?" She nodded toward Dru, Buffy and Faith. "You broke all our hearts in one way or another."

Angel grabbed her by the shoulders. 

"I said that the next time I saw you I would kill you." 

"Promises were never your strong suit, lover." Darla said and then she twisted the knife, literally. Angel fell to his knees and Darla turned and beckoned to Dru. "Come on, Drusillia. I'm through with this town."

Angel stumbled to his feet and looked down at the blade protruding from his shoulder. It hurt like hell but it wasn't meant to kill him, just cripple him for a moment. Angel pulled the blade out and took a step toward them but he wobbled a bit and almost lost his balance. He knew immediately what she'd just done to him. 

"Are you OK?" Liz asked him. She'd seen him take a more impressive beating but he had taken this for her and he suddenly looked sick.

"Yeah," he said, "But we need to get out of here."

She nodded and went back to work on freeing Max.

Wesley went to Angel and examined the wound that Darla had given his vampire friend. His brows furrowed and he put his finger in the wound and then licked it.

"Oh, I did not just see that!" Gunn cried. "Don't tell me you're developing a taste for blood now, are you English?"

But Wesley ignored him. He looked up at Angel.

"The blade was poisoned. It had—"

"I know," Angel said, gritting his teeth and ripping the blade out. "We need to get out of here, there isn't much time."

Wesley looked at his friend solemnly and finally nodded. 

"We'll get people out the way Faith got in."

*****

Ethan was scanning the room frantically while he waved a stake around rather ineffectually. 

"Where did Darla go?" He demanded.

Spike looked around and saw the blond disappear around a corner with Drusillia trailing behind her. 

"Dru baby!" He called out but she ignored him and followed Darla out. "Well that was uncalled for. You think she's still steamed about my trying to stake her the last time she was in Sunnydale?" He shook his head. "And deserting the ship when things aren't going her way? That girl's gone soft."

"They left?" Ethan said, frantic. 

"Looks that way." He said. "If you were expecting more from Darla then boy were you—"

"We have to get out of here," Ethan cried. "If she left that means—"

*****

It sounded like ice cracking.

Max looked up and immediately knew what was happening. 

"Liz!" He shouted. "Get out of here!"

"We're almost there," she said, still grinding away at the chains binding him to the wall. 

"Liz—"

There was an explosion that shook the entire building. Then another and then another. Angel fell over. Cordelia screamed. 

"Good lord," Wesley whispered.

"The roof," Ethan screamed. "She rigged the entire roof—"

Human, alien and vampire alike all instinctively looked up.

Suddenly Max felt the chains slither off of his wrists. 

Then the cement roof crumbled above their heads.


	13. A Normal Life

It's been a while since I could look at myself straight

With one arm, Max pulled Liz as close to him as possible and then he lifted his other arm to the ceiling. It was more instinct then thought so he was as surprised as everyone else when the ceiling didn't actually fall. 

Liz braced herself for the fallout and when it didn't come she looked up timidly from Max's embrace. With everyone else in the room she looked up and saw the shimmering green force field that was keeping the ceiling from crushing them. She looked at Max and saw that he was already trembling from the effort. She knew that he had a hard time maintaining it on it's own, let alone, holding tons of concrete. 

"Michael," he whispered. 

She turned toward Michael across the now silent room. 

"Michael, get us out of here!" She shouted. 

Michael nodded and looked around. The clear path that he had been begging for finally materialized in front of him. Only vampires remained between him and the nearest wall. He extended his arm and the air around him sizzled. The blast heated the air around it and blew a hole the size of a semi into the wall. The vampires in between were vaporized.

"Let's get out of here!" Michael shouted. Everyone who was stunned by his remarkable act snapped back to attention and made a mad dash for the new exit. But Michael and Isabel ran to Max.

"Can you move, man," Michael asked him.

Max shook his head and now sweat was pouring down his face from the strain.

"We have to get him out of here," Isabel insisted. 

"We will, " Buffy said, coming up behind Max and slipping her arm around him. "I can move him."

Then Faith came up and circled him from the other side.

"We'll get your boy out of here, just make tracks." Faith said. 

Isabel and Michael hesitated then hurried toward the exit. Liz looked around to make sure that no one else was left inside and then she followed. Buffy and Faith looked at each other, nodded, and then launched themselves and Max toward the hole in the wall. The ceiling started dropping around them, but Max managed to maintain the shield until they reached the outside. As soon as they cleared it, the soap factory began a total collapse. 

Liz, who had been waiting for him, threw her arms around Max. He dropped to his knees from exhaustion and she knelt down on the ground and circled him with her arms. He leaned into her, unable to stay up on his own. 

"Wow," Kyle said, "that was intense."

"Chalk up another one for the good guys," Xander said, as the remaining vampires scattered into the night. 

And that was the moment that Angel collapsed. 

"Angel," Buffy cried, running to his side.

"What's wrong with him," Liz asked. 

"The blade that Darla stabbed him with was laced with poison," Wesley said quietly. 

"Poison?" Buffy said. She looked down at Angel, even paler then usual, sweating, beginning to convulse, and she recognized it. 

"It's the same stuff I tagged him with," Faith assessed. 

"It didn't work this fast before," Buffy insisted. 

"Darla must have used a stronger dose. I—I had wanted him to linger."

Buffy stood up, enraged. 

"I remember," she said. 

"Is there an antidote?" Liz asked, reasoning that if Angel had survived before then there had to be a cure. 

Both Faith and Buffy looked at Liz and she didn't know why but she wished she hadn't asked that question.

"Yeah," Buffy said. "There's an antidote."

"Buffy, you're not thinking—" Giles began, but was silenced by the deadly look she gave him.

"What is the antidote?" Liz whispered to Wesley.

"He can only survive if he drains the blood of a slayer."

"Drains--?" 

"It nearly killed Buffy the last time," he said. 

Angel knew the end was coming quickly. He was aware of everyone arguing around him, but he could feel his grip on reality slipping. He looked up and saw Liz kneeling by his head, still cradling a gaunt Max. But strangely, he could still hear Drusilla's music and he wondered if he was beginning to hallucinate. 

__

It's been a while since I could look at myself straight

Since I said I'm sorry

Since I've seen the way the candle lights your face

But I can still remember

Just the way you taste

"It's the only way," he heard Buffy say, standing above him. 

"No!" He screamed. He hadn't wanted to do it the last time, but she had forced him. He hadn't fed off of anyone in a hundred years and when he did it had been the woman he loved. He could still remember just the way she tasted. It had saved his life but at what cost? It was the final wedge that drove them apart. He shook his head. Never again. 

Buffy bent down to him.

"There's no other way," she whispered. 

"Sure there is," Faith said. 

Buffy looked up at the other slayer with a glare. 

"You can't be serious," she said. 

"What, B, you don't believe in karma? Why do you think I'm here? Why do you think he got hit with the same poison that I used to take him out?"

"So now you want to be a martyr? Well I don't swallow it."

"You don't have to," she countered. "He does."

Everyone was still arguing as Liz looked down at Angel. He had begun to convulse and his eyes were unfocused. Liz ran her fingers in his hair.

"Buffy," he began to mumble. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough for us. I wish—"

Liz looked away. 

"Max," she whispered. 

Max looked down at Angel. He knew what the vampire had done for Liz. He inched forward and slowly raised his hand over him. 

"Do you have any idea what your mates did to bring you back?" Spike was saying to Buffy. "Are you going to throw that away, just like that? For him."

"Spike, I don't have time for this." Buffy said. "I'm going to—"

"Buffy." Giles said.

Buffy turned and saw what her Watcher was looking at. Max Evans was leaning over Angel. He was so weak he couldn't even stay upright, so Liz, with her arms wrapped around him from behind, held onto him. Max gently laid a hand over the wound in Angel's shoulder. The moment he touched him, Max's head snapped back and Angel's back arched like they were both being electrocuted.

Max wanted to scream.

The images flooding him were violent and horrifying. They were Angel and some of Darla, feeding on women, men, and children. Angel was in all of his horrendous glory. Then he saw an image of a dark haired woman, tied and bound by a fireplace and then the images shifted. Suddenly the violence stopped and Angel was wandering, guilt ridden, lost. Then Max saw Buffy, and the images became hopeful, the violence on the side of good, Angel's soul felt lighter. 

"Max!"

He heard Liz's voice screaming in his ear and he broke the connection and fell back into her arms. 

Buffy fell to her knees and looked down at Angel.

"Angel?"

The vampire blinked a few times and then he focused on Buffy. He reached up and touched her face. 

"Are you alright," she asked.

He nodded and sat up slowly. 

"Max," they heard Liz shout. They turned and found the young woman bent over her alien boyfriend. 

"Is he going to be OK," Angel asked.

"He was so weak…." Liz mumbled. But then Max opened his eyes and Liz squealed in delight and hugged him. 

******

"We should start clearing out of here," Sheriff Valenti said. "The fire department will be here in a minute."

Everyone nodded and started toward their vehicles. 

"I'm going to need a clothes allowance," Cordelia was insisting to Gunn and Wesley, just as Isabel and Michael walked by. Isabel sighed and waved her hand over Cordy's outfit. All of the stains, from blood to soot vanished. Cordy looked down at herself then at Isabel. "Are you in need of a new best friend?"

"So who do you think is scarier," Kyle asked Michael. "Vampires or special unit agents?"

"Well the special unit can still come out during the day…." 

"Is that lavender?" Maria asked as she walked along side Willow and Tara.

"We always use different scents and oils when fighting off creatures of the night," Tara confirmed. 

"Really? I've been trying to whip up a combination that will lure alien males. Well one alien male, any suggestions?"

"So, sheriff," Xander was saying as he Anya, Faith and the sheriff walked. "You have some interesting criminal types in this berg. Ever think of coming out to California?"

"I think I'll stay—" then he choked on a scream when they neared the cars and he saw a green, horned demon in a bright yellow jacket and pants leaning casually against his vehicle. 

"Chill," Faith said. "He's my ride." Then she turned and looked at Valenti. "You don't have any pull with any parole boards do you?"

"Sheriff!" The brightly dressed demon said cheerily. "How about some of that Crocodile Rock now?"

Angel and Buffy were walking towards her car when they saw Max and Liz leaning against it. Max was better but he was still weak. He was leaning against the car with Liz standing in front of him. 

"I knew you would come," he said, staring intensely into her eyes. "I prayed that you wouldn't but I knew you would." 

She smiled at him. 

"I'll always come for you Max. Always."

He leaned his forehead against hers. 

"I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"Because none of this kind of stuff would happen if it wasn't for me," he said. "You wouldn't have been involved with agent Topolski, you wouldn't have been kidnapped by vampires, or—"

"I wouldn't look at the stars the way I do now, I wouldn't have the ability to astral project, and most importantly, I wouldn't have you. Max, you make it all worth it. Every bit of it."

"But you'll never have a normal life."

She smiled.

"So what's so great about normal?"

Then she wrapped her arms around his neck and she kissed him. 

Buffy and Angel glanced away, not wanting to intrude on the moment. 

"I remember being that naïve," Buffy said.

Angel was quiet for a moment and then he turned and looked at her. 

"Are you sure that we're not the ones that got it wrong?"

"What do you mean?"

"Look at them," Angel said, pointing to the other couple. "They are literally from different worlds and they've still managed to make it work."

"It's still early," Buffy replied. "We were that way in the beginning. We didn't want to think too far ahead."

"I think they've thought ahead. I wouldn't bet against them, would you?"

Buffy turned to Angel.

"What are you saying exactly?"

Angel held his hand out to her.

"Just that anything is possible."

Buffy looked at his hand and everything that it offered. Carefully she placed her own palm in his. 

"Maybe," she said quietly. 

"Hey!" Faith shouted, cranking up the radio in Angel's car, filling the night with thunderous music. "There are still a few hours before sunrise and I don't have to be back in my cell until then. What do you do in this town for action?"

"Well you just demolished the only hotspot for any real fun," Kyle remarked. 

"Really?" Valenti asked, with a raised eyebrow.

"Not that I would know…"

"Brody's out of town," Max remarked. "We can hang out at the UFO museum."

"Is there music?" The Host asked. "Because I am just dying to read this room." 

Max blinked at what looked like a demon. "Uh, we can bring some." 

"Then let's party." Faith exclaimed. 

Liz and Max climbed into Buffy's car. Liz looked at the slayer as she started the engine. 

"This was a typical night for you wasn't it?" She said.

"Not typical but not exactly a new experience either."

"What about Darla and Dru and Ethan?"

"They'll be back eventually," Buffy admitted. "But I think Darla at least learned not to mess with any more aliens. If she does come back, you know you can call me. About her or any other world ending dilemmas that come your way."

Liz nodded.

"Us too," she said. "If you ever need us for any help, you can count on us. Always."

Buffy and Liz smiled at one another. Natural allies, friends forever. 

The End


End file.
